


Dawn of Balance

by Rogue_Eight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Be a DoBby, Canon-Typical, F/M, Lots of plot, More of an exploration than a fix-it (the author likes all the films), POV Finn (Star Wars), POV Kylo Ren, POV Rey (Star Wars), Post-TLJ, Sort Of, Spot the Easter Eggs, Star Wars: Dawn of Balance, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Translations encouraged
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 28
Words: 33,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25764775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rogue_Eight/pseuds/Rogue_Eight
Summary: ‘You’ve turned them against me!’ Rey cried out at Kylo.‘You have done that yourself!’ Kylo responded, heatedly. With a grim look on his face, he stretched out his right hand towards the blue saber. In an instant, the blade’s light shut off and the hilt came catapulting across the space between them. Kylo caught it firmly, its allegiance now with him.-DAILY UPDATES!Loved Rise of Skywalker but frustrated by the plot holes?Then THIS IS THE FIC YOU ARE LOOKING FOR!!!It contains most of the elements of RoS but played around with and reassembled in new and surprising ways. With plenty of plot twists and Easter Eggs to keep everyone guessing along the way, this is one for the nerds...
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	1. A New Strategy

**Author's Note:**

> Following the Battle of Crait, the First Order is advancing its chokehold on the galaxy while the Resistance attempts fruitlessly to regroup. As both military and personal pressures mount, Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order, and Rey, a scavenger-turned-Jedi apprentice, tread a fateful trajectory towards one another. Meanwhile, rebel storm trooper Finn works hard to keep hope alive, but he begins to find that his resolve is tested to its limits.

_KYLO_

Kylo Ren paced the room. Its cavernous space and sparse furniture meant that he was able to pound several paces before he met one of the smooth, black walls at either end and was forced to turn.

His thoughts were fixed in anger upon a single pair of hazel eyes. The scavenger’s. He had been searching for her for weeks now, diverting countless trooper units from primary First Order business to the task of trawling through spaceport upon spaceport, planet upon planet. But still she eluded him.

The distraction away from the Order’s central goals was costing him. Only this morning reports had been submitted of an uprising on Nav-7, where storm trooper numbers had been reduced last week in order to free up personnel for the search. And yesterday and the day before there had been similar reports of frontline operatives under strain. Yet if he gave up the pursuit, if he conceded, he knew the memory of the girl’s betrayal would haunt him.

It was infuriating.

He looked down at the rounded black helmet which he held in his right hand. One of his first acts as Supreme Leader had been to commission Albrekh, a metalsmith, to reforge it, piecing it back together after he had shattered it in a previous storm of rage. Now the mask’s metallic hull was streaked through with red joint lines: a lattice of Sarrassian iron. He hated it. But he hated the thought of his face being on view even more.

He reached one of the obsidian durasteel walls for the umpteenth time and made to turn. Just as he did so, a doorway at the far end slid open. A man who he disliked more than any other stepped huffily into the room.

‘Hux’, Kylo seethed. ‘What do you want?’

He spat out each word in staccato.

The man, unphased by the cold welcome, sneered back at him as he approached.

‘Supreme Leader’, he mewled. ‘This situation has gone far enough. Nav-7 has just fallen.’

Kylo took a moment to absorb the news. ‘What happened?’

‘Our units were defeated by local rebels. Captain Iolma pulled back to the upper levels of Mi city and held the main district for a time. But he was eventually driven out when the Mi-ryn ambushed the central streets from the sewer system below.’

Kylo swore loudly to the room at large.

‘Iolma made the decision to retreat rather than fight on’, Hux continued. ‘He evacuated his troops to the _Steadfast_ , which is currently in geostationary orbit above the planet. Naturally he was taken to a termination cell upon his arrival. General Pryde shares my lack of tolerance for cowardice.’

Kylo closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, standing in heavy silence.

Soon however, Hux appeared unable to contain himself anymore and pressed on. ‘Supreme Leader, we cannot allow any more territories, especially such valuable mining colonies, to lapse once more into enemy control. Pull the divisions from the hunt for the murderess’.

Kylo’s eyes flashed open and he stood up straight to stare down at Hux again.

‘I am confused, General’, he spoke with dangerous softness. ‘Do you not recall finding the mutilated body of our former Leader Snoke, butchered at her hands? Do you so dishonour his memory?’

‘Of course, I remember’, Hux snapped. ‘But our position has become untenable. We must change strategy.’

‘And what do you propose that we do?’ Kylo intoned testily, now leering down into the General’s face.

Hux stood his ground.

‘Put our troops on the offensive once more. With our front lines replenished, we will be able to crush more and more Mid-Rim systems. Let our wave of force sweep inwards towards the Core worlds.’

‘And how will that bring justice for our late Supreme Leader?’ Kylo challenged. _And for me_ , he added in his head.

‘The Resistance will not stand idly by.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that they will fight back. Based on our intelligence on their regrouping, we estimate their force to number a mere twenty ships. But even in their depleted state they will surely mount a response. They will not allow multiple planets to fall to our control unchallenged, especially those in the middle reaches of the galaxy, which are more heavily populated’.

‘And what of the girl?’

‘Invisibility is not possible on the front lines of war. She will reveal herself’, Hux said.

Kylo considered. He hated to agree with Hux, much less follow any of his plans, but he knew that his irritating subordinate had not become General out of a lack of military skill. For once, Kylo put aside his pride and nodded coldly.

‘Fine. Send out a new order numbered 3940. Discontinue all search operations and withdraw from those planets where we hold no assets. Re-assign all divisions to our Core-ward frontier.’ He raised his metallic mask and pulled it firmly over his head before continuing, his voice now modulated. ‘I will formulate instructions for our next manoeuvres and devise a battle plan’.


	2. Sole Vessel

_FINN_

Finn grinned as he looked at Rey. For the first time in ages his fellow Resistance member wore an expression of genuine pleasure.

‘Finn!’ she sniggered. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that!’

‘Why not?’, he replied. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’

‘Well, yes. But what if the General found out?’

‘There’s no need to worry about her, Rey. She’d agree with me’.

‘Maybe’, Rey responded. ‘But all the same, keep your voice down!’

The General in question, Leia Organa, head of the Resistance, was at the present time studying a set of star charts under a makeshift canopy, on the opposite side of the clearing in which they sat. Around them, pur-darai trees stretched skywards in a bid to capture some of the weak light of the distant triple suns. Their leaves, long and spindly, were a pallid shade of yellow.

Rey sighed, exhaling the musty air which characterised the Outer Rim planet of Zoekta on which they had made their temporary camp. Her hand drifted to a loose strand of hair which had fallen free of her three buns. She tucked it behind her ear and her expression changed.

‘Finn, I’m worried’, she confessed. As she spoke, her hazel eyes wandered to the _Millennium Falcon_ , the hardy but battle-worn ship which was now the sole vessel in the Resistance fleet. ‘Even if the Order believes those false calculations we leaked that we have twenty ships, it’s hardly going to present us as a threat to be wary of’.

‘You’re missing the point, Rey’, he responded firmly. ‘The exact number doesn’t matter. The important thing is that the First Order believes we are regrouping, gaining numbers and increasing our strength’.

‘But we’re not, are we?’ Rey countered. ‘No one came in our most desperate hour on Crait. Why would they join us now? Nothing’s changed.’

‘Some things have changed. We’re not cornered with the First Order advancing on all sides anymore, for a start.’

‘Just because the Order’s not physically here, it doesn’t mean that they don’t know where we are. What if they’re just waiting us out and biding their time?’

‘You don’t believe that’, he replied.

‘Maybe not’, she conceded. ‘But they’re still effectively controlling our every move. We can’t set foot on any of the populated planets. Even Leia’s closest old allies are too nervous to shelter us, especially now that it’s common knowledge that the Knights of Ren have joined the hunt. We can’t trust anyone. The price on our heads is too high not to expect someone to turn us in’.

‘Come on, Rey. Have some hope’. Finn was forever speaking of ‘hope’, though he wasn’t sure where he got the inspiration.

‘Finn, the First Order’s all but won’.

‘What about the reports of uprisings in some cities, though? The Order’s spreading itself too thinly. Only yesterday, on Nav-7…’

‘Oi!’ He was interrupted by a yell from the loading ramp of the _Falcon_. ‘Would you two quit yacking and come over here and help us?’

It was Poe Dameron. The Resistance pilot was carrying out some much-needed maintenance on the _Falcon_ with Chewie, an old Wookie friend of the General, and Beaumont Kin, a blonde-haired Coruscanti who had been a fellow survivor of the Battle of Crait.

Rey and Finn jumped up hurriedly and headed over to him where he stood with his droid BB-8, realising belatedly that their scheduled break had overrun.

‘Sorry’, said Rey as they reached Poe. ‘I’ll return to re-routing the hyperdrive matrix, shall I?’

‘Thanks’, said Poe warmly. ‘Finn, would you mind helping me out with this ventilator hatch?’

‘Anything for the cause!’ he responded, trying to be upbeat. ‘I’ll just fetch a servicing kit from inside’.

He walked up the ramp and into the main body of the ship, with Rey following behind. The _Falcon_ was about as tired and patched-up as a ship could get, but you could tell that she was loved. She had something in her aura that showed she was imbibed with fondness and care. Those feelings had survived even though the ship had sat docked and covered in tarpaulin for years. And now that the _Falcon_ was being used again, it felt like her soul had reawakened.

He passed through the living area, batting away a porg that rose flapping and squawking as it was startled by him. The birds had now thoroughly infested the ship’s insulation material. He wasn’t sure what they ate, but he was thankful that so far they seemed to have resisted the urge to chew on much of the wiring. He didn’t think the _Falcon_ could cope with too many more circuits out of action.

As the pair of them turned through the last passageway and into the ship’s cockpit, they found that it was already occupied.

‘Uorrrrgh ruughhhh’, greeted Chewie.

‘Hi’, said Finn. ‘How’s the fuel indicator coming on?’

‘Grruh’, the Wookie replied.

‘That bad, huh?’ he responded.

‘Aughh ruh ooerrrr’

‘Ok, see you later.’ he said, as the Wookie left the cockpit to go and try to find a new display unit from the _Falcon_ ’s (luckily well-stocked) box of spare parts.

On locating the servicing kit where he had left it under one of the pilot’s seats, Finn turned and made to leave. Rey was already reaching up to the panel covering the hyperdrive matrix, which was located just below the ceiling on the right-hand side.

‘Well, see you in a bit, I guess’, he said, as she unscrewed it from its fittings and set to work. He noticed, to his surprise, that she wore a deep frown on her face, which had become clouded with something like frustration and disappointment.

‘Rey?’ he asked, when she did not respond.

‘Hmm, sorry?’, she said.

He shook his head. ‘Nothing. See you later’. Her thoughts were clearly on something, or someone, else.


	3. A Beacon

_REY_

‘Hey, Jedi-girl!’

Rey looked up from the tangle of wires in which she had been engrossed to see the familiar face of a friendly mechanic, peering down at her.

‘Hi Rose’, Rey greeted her warmly. ‘Everything ok?’

‘Relatively-speaking’, Rose replied. ‘The General wants to see you’.

‘Oh’, said Rey, nervously. ‘Right, I’ll… just give me a moment’. She wrapped some tape around the wires, holding them in five separate bundles ready for her return, and straightened up. She grimaced, not realising how sore she had become crouching in the same position all afternoon.

Following Rose, she tried to guess at what Leia might want to speak to her about.

She had been training hard each evening, guided by the ancient Jedi textbooks she had ‘borrowed’ from old Master Luke. When she had taken them, she had fully intended to return them to Ahch-To, the island home of the first Jedi temple. But now that Luke was dead, the temple had no warden and, somehow, she had a feeling that the books should remain with her. In any case, there were no other Jedi left to come searching for them.

Perhaps Leia was unhappy with how she was progressing. She herself had to admit that she was finding her meditations on the light side of the Force challenging. Often, she would just manage to reach a sense of inner calm and unity with all the positive energies of the universe, only for her consciousness to be swayed elsewhere. Before she knew it, her mind was drifting to other, less holy elements of the Force. Rey found it frustrating, but also worrying. What if she wasn’t strong enough to be a Jedi? What if she was not innately _good_ enough?

‘Here she is, General’, Rose’s voice snapped her out of her reverie.

In the shadow of the tarpaulin over the Resistance’s temporary command station, a pair of deep brown eyes lifted from a tele-screen to gaze at them. They were set in a wrinkled face beneath meticulously styled grey hair.

Rey had the feeling she was being assessed.

‘General’, she spoke, nodding her head in respect.

‘Thank you, Rose. You may return to your duties’, Leia dismissed her friend evenly. ‘Rey, walk with me’, she added, part invitation and part command.

The two women set off into the woods, treading carefully here and there to avoid tripping on the unusually pointed roots of the pur-darais.

‘Rey, I sense that you are uneasy’, Leia queried, after a minute or two.

Rey was unsure of how to respond. She knew that even though Leia was not a Jedi, she had inherited the same Force sensitivity as her brother Luke. That gave her a level of intuition that it was pointless to argue against.

‘Yes’, Rey responded. ‘I am anxious about my training’.

‘But that’s not all, is it?’ Leia prompted, gently.

‘Errr…’, Rey stuttered. Surely Leia couldn’t possibly know about Rey’s connection with _him_ ; the tall man robed in black who had last appeared to her on his knees in a mine on Crait. Even if he was Leia’s son. Even if Rey’s feelings towards him were… strong. She had not told anyone of her interactions with the now-Supreme Leader. Even Chewie, who had piloted the _Falcon_ to drop her off at the First Order’s _Supremacy_ during the battle, had been unaware of her true reason for going there. She decided to deflect the question. ‘I am concerned for our mission’.

‘Our mission?’

‘To defeat the First Order’.

‘What concerns you?’

‘Well, with respect, General’, Rey continued nervously, conscious that Leia had made it her life’s work to fight for galactic peace, diplomatically or otherwise. ‘We are hugely outnumbered and outgunned. On my old home-planet of Jakku, they would say that we were ‘huddered’’.

‘Huddered?’ questioned Leia, bemused.

‘It means that we haven’t got a chance’, said Rey bluntly, stopping walking and turning to face the General now. ‘Leia, what are we doing? You know it’s only a matter of time before the Order finds us. That last stop at Dvo-tyyyk was a close call. And even if we manage to stay hidden for a while, we have no way of mounting a significant attack. We’ll never win’.

‘Hmm’, said Leia.

‘Hmm?’ repeated Rey, after a beat of silence.

Leia set off through the trees again, and Rey had no choice but to fall into step behind her.

‘Rey, when you have been fighting the dark side for as long as I have, you stop thinking in terms of winning and losing.’

‘What do you mean?’ Rey asked, unsure of where this conversation was going.

‘I mean’, Leia continued, ‘that our aim is not to win. Darkness is a fundamental element in the galaxy, one which cannot be eradicated. Rather, our aim is to recalibrate the Force so that the light regains some of its dominance, and the darkness recedes. And we do that mainly not by downing ships or disabling enemy weapons, but by reaching out to hearts and minds. We must stoke the fire of courage and goodwill that burns in the souls of all people, however weak the flames might currently be. If we do that, then we will bring peace to the universe and halt the rise of the First Order, which seeks only to possess and control.’

‘How do we ‘stoke the fire’?’

‘Well, partly through spreading messages of hope; letting people know that they are not alone and that there is a group which fights for good in this universe. But, please understand, this is now the secondary mission of the Resistance.’ At this point the General stopped walking and turned to face Rey once more. ‘Our primary mission is you.’

‘ _Me_?’ Rey repeated, shocked.

‘Yes. Once you have completed your training and fully become a Jedi, your goodness will be visible as a beacon for all to see, illuminating people’s minds and freeing their hearts’.

‘But… but Leia!’ Rey cried, a little hoarse now. ‘You can’t be serious. I can barely hold a Jedi meditative state, let alone be a… a ‘beacon’ for others’.

‘Rey, you’re our only hope’, Leia spoke firmly and gravely. And with that, she turned to follow the path back to the clearing, leaving Rey to follow meekly in her stead.


	4. Star Lines

_KYLO_

‘Set a course for Rivtka’, Kylo boomed powerfully across the bridge to the chief navigator of his ship. The _Finalizer_ was now the utmost power in the galaxy, unmatched by any other single craft. Snoke’s flagship, the _Supremacy_ , had been destroyed just before the Battle of Crait, so Kylo had taken Hux’s command ship as his own. He had no doubt that the General deeply resented this, which added to his pleasure in doing so. In any case, he wished to keep a close eye on Hux; he had no desire to become embroiled in a power struggle for leadership.

In the last few weeks the _Finalizer_ had been upgraded so that her standard _Resurgent_ -class features were enhanced. She was now capable of warping to or from lightspeed in under 15 clicks – a record unheard of for a mid-sized ship, let alone a massive battlecruiser on the scale of the _Finalizer_.

‘Ready, Supreme Leader’, the navigator spoke hastily after a minute or so.

‘Jump’, ordered Kylo.

As the _Finalizer_ leapt to hyperspace, Kylo stood by the viewport. He would never tire of it, he thought, peering through the visor of his mask to watch the world outside shift from blackness to electric-blue star lines. It felt like the whole of existence was being swallowed up in an instant and channelled into a new form alive with power.

‘Following the current course, we should arrive at Rivtka at 14:00 hours +1 Standard Galactic Time’, the navigator announced.

Kylo acknowledged the estimate with a single, stiff nod. ‘I’ll be in my quarters. Alert me if there are any developments’.

With that, he swept out of the room and into the corridor, his long dark cape billowing from his shoulders. As the door closed behind him, he missed the sigh of relief emanating from the bridge officers which followed.

The route to his own quarters was not a long one. He strode through three more corridors before riding a lift two floors up. As the doors slid smoothly open, he took a left turn and reached a plain, durasteel entranceway. He punched a code into the pin pad which granted access to his private domain.

Kylo stalked into his main sitting room and sat down in his armchair. It was a black, high-backed seat with the bare minimum of padding. The chair was placed beside a single side-table (also black) and before a plain wall. Nothing in the room was made for comfort, let alone luxury. Through the discipline of his many years of training Kylo had come to see such embellishment as superfluous. All he really needed to feel at rest was a clear head and a sense of connection to the dark undertones swirling through the universe.

At least that was how it used to be, when he was spending his days training wholeheartedly in the dark side of the Force. Before the death of his master and of his father (both at his hand, whatever he had encouraged Hux to think). Before he had begun to question. Before _her_.

Kylo groaned and placed his masked head in his hands. Unwelcome thoughts gnawed at the edges of his mind, unrelenting. A vision of a bridge swam before his eyes. He was stood in the centre of it, poised over a chasm within the great structure of the thermal oscillator on Starkiller Base. From the opposite side of the void, a man approached. He had aged by a couple of decades since Kylo had last seen him but was still easily recognisable. His father. The dim light illuminating the space dwindled and died, and all that was left was the red glow from the oscillator itself.

Kylo roared in pain. He had no desire to relive what the memory would show him next. His left arm whipped out to the side and the table was telekinetically lifted through the air with the Force. It rose two feet before he directed it to smash into the wall in front, splintering its wood into many shards.

He leapt to his feet again and pounded his fist on his door, willing it to open faster than its automated mechanics would deliver. He stormed from his quarters and down the corridor to the lift once more. This time, he rode seven floors down, emerging into the training area of the Knights of Ren, whom he had recalled from their previous missions for Snoke, scattered throughout the galaxy. The dark warriors had answered to him for years, but now they were truly his to command, with no overlord directing their movements.

He had so far ordered them to stay on the _Finalizer_. They were his eyes and ears on the ship, roaming the hallways and maintaining an ominous presence amongst the troops. He told himself that this strategy was to instil fear amongst his soldiers, ensuring their allegiance to their new master in this turbulent time of change. However, in reality, Kylo knew that he was avoiding deploying them in the search for _her_. He could count on storm troopers to follow the order that she be captured unharmed, but not the Knights. They were brutes. In truth, this was already causing problems on the _Finalizer_. The Knights were used to roaming free, and it was like keeping wild mutts caged. The consequences were violent - Kylo wasn’t sure how many more deaths of ship staff he could overlook.

‘Ap’lek’, Kylo called as he strode into the Knights’ ready room. ‘With me.’

The Knight addressed rose from his position crouched in the corner and followed Kylo down the hallway and into a combat practice room.

Upon reaching the middle of the room, Kylo pulled his lightsaber from where it was attached to his belt and lit it. Its fiery red beam sparked and hissed angrily. He swung it out wide and rounded on Ap’lek, knowing that the Knight would be ready for him. As Ap’lek’s ancient Mandalorian vibro-axe clashed with the saber, Kylo began to focus on the present at last. With each blow the pair exchanged, the vision of the bridge receded further and further from his mind.


	5. No One Noticed

_FINN_

‘Did you hear about Nav-7?’ Finn asked Poe, as the pair of them packed away their breakfast items and prepared to head over to the _Falcon_ for another day working on maintaining the ship. Their first job was to finish fixing the ventilator hatch which they had started on together yesterday.

‘Sure did’, said Poe, enthusiastically, lifting the heavy outer grating and beckoning to Finn to slide into the shaft behind it. ‘I can’t believe the Mi-ryn used the sewers to infiltrate the main city. What legends!’

BB-8 whistled in agreement, having joined the two of them.

‘And the operation was carried out without any contact from us whatsoever!’ Finn continued. ‘It just makes you think that even though there aren’t many of us officially in the Resistance, maybe there are lots of people out there feeling a desire to rise up’.

‘Maybe’, responded Poe, smiling at his friend’s optimism.

‘Pass me a screwdriver from that service kit’, requested Finn. ‘There should be a good sko-headed one that’s just the right size to fit these screwheads’.

BB-8 sped over to the service kit and engaged a robotic arm to rummage amongst the tools and retrieve the one requested. The droid then rolled back to where Poe still knelt propping up the outer grating and passed it to him.

‘Thanks, buddy’, Poe said as he in turn reached into the shaft and handed the screwdriver to Finn.

For a while the three remained in comfortable silence as Finn began to work in earnest on the ventilator’s pneumatic systems, while Poe and BB-8 passed more tools to him at various times. At one point, Beaumont came over to fetch a drill from the service kit, but other than that they worked without interruption.

‘The thing is’, began Poe, his mental musings spilling out into speech. ‘Whether people actually do anything about that desire to rise up or not is a whole other matter. People could do so much if they were less afraid. But I guess you can’t blame them for feeling frightened of the might of the First Order. With every victory the Order gains, and with every planet and colony they conquer, people are going to feel less and less hopeful about their chances of standing up to them’.

‘All it takes is one person with guts and conviction, though’, responded Finn. ‘I mean, take a look at Luke Skywalker!’

‘What about him?’

‘Well, if he hadn’t been so determined, he never would have turned Darth Vader from the dark side. And just think, if Vader hadn’t turned, _he_ never would have killed old Emperor Palpatine by chucking him down that reactor shaft in the second Death Star!’

‘It definitely makes you think’, Poe agreed. ‘Palpatine’s death was so important. It marked the turning point in the civil war. From that point onwards the galaxy started on a path to peace that eventually led to the signing of the Galactic Concordance on Chandrila a year later’.

‘I can’t believe that for so long no one noticed that Palpatine, the leader of the Galactic Empire, was also Darth Sidious, an evil Sith Lord’, said Finn.

‘Yeah. What if one of our group has been a Sith Lord this whole time, and we’ve had no idea?’

‘My money’s on Chewie’, laughed Finn.

‘Oh no. It’s definitely Rey!’ Poe jested back.

BB-8 looked indignant while the two continued to snigger.

‘Excuse me? Master Finn?’ came a hesitant voice from somewhere behind Poe.

Finn poked his head out of the hatch to see C-3PO, the protocol droid’s metallic humanoid body glinting in the weak sunlight as he made his way to where they were working at the base of the _Falcon_.

‘Hi, C-3PO. What’s up?’

‘I am a little confused by your question, sir. Did you mean to ask what is moving in an upwards direction? Or, what is already above us relative to our current position?’

Finn groaned inwardly. _Never speak figuratively to a protocol droid_ , he mentally intoned.

‘Never mind’, he responded, an air of exasperation in his voice as he added the finishing touches to the ventilator hatch. ‘How can I help?’

‘Well, sir, R2 here and I were wondering if you’d seen Mistress Rey recently?’ As C-3PO spoke, he gestured to the short astromech droid R2-D2, who had apparently trundled over at his companion’s side.

‘Not since before breakfast’, Finn replied, now fully clambering out of the shaft and straightening up once more. ‘You know she often rises early and gets to work before most of the rest of us.’

In truth Finn had often teased her about this, guessing that she relished the practical jobs involved in working on the ship. However, given that he had it from Rose that Rey also stayed up very late each night working on her Jedi studies, he did wonder how much sleep she managed to get.

‘I would guess that she’s inside the _Falcon_ ’, Poe said, pointing towards the ship’s loading ramp. ‘She’s been working on the hyperdrive’.

‘Thank you’, said C-3PO, gently inclining his head and turning to the astromech. ‘Come along R2. We must go and tell her’.

‘Tell her what?’ asked Finn, his curiosity peaked.

‘Well, sir, we were going through some of my archived data scripts to clear out some memory space, when we came across something we thought might interest her about a supposed planet of the Sith’.

‘A Sith planet?’ responded Finn, incredulous.

‘Yes, sir. There was no record of its name, but the data file suggests that such a Sith stronghold once existed somewhere in the Unknown Regions. According to the file, very few are thought to have ever made the journey there’.

‘Did Emperor Palpatine ever go there?’ asked Finn.

‘Impossible to say, sir’, replied C-3PO. ‘But if he did, he would have been one of the last to do so’.

With that, C-3PO turned and walked stiffly towards the loading ramp, with R2-D2 rattling along in his wake.


	6. The Fall

_REY_

After eating dinner, Rey retreated to her bunk in a tent that she and Rose were sharing. She was worn out from yet another day of rising before the dawn of the first sun. She didn’t much enjoy toiling the extra hours in the _Falcon_ , but she was addicted to the peace of there being few people about as she started her day. Now, despite her tiredness, she felt that she had to resume her work developing her understanding of the Force. There was still so much she did not know. C-3PO and R2’s revelation to her that afternoon about the existence of a Sith planet was proof enough of that. That was not to mention Leia’s ambition for her. She was still reeling from the General’s words to her the day before.

‘Our primary mission is you’, Leia’s voice echoed. There was such trust in it, such confidence and assurance.

Rey felt dazed.

Still, she knew what was resting on her success and so, with great effort, she reached under her bunk and retrieved one of her Jedi books to begin reading. Yesterday evening she had reached a chapter which seemed to be about using the Force to heal others, but she had found it hard to understand. The books were written in ancient languages and were not computerised. This made translating them a slow and tedious process, especially given her own limited ability to read and write. She attempted to decipher a new line of text, but her brain felt sluggish.

‘What are you reading about tonight?’, asked Rose, curiously, from the opposite side of the tent.

‘I’m honestly not sure’, Rey sighed in return. ‘I think this phrase here records a method for transferring some of your life force into another being’.

‘Wow! That’s so cool! I wish I was Force-sensitive like you. It would be amazing to be able to do all that stuff.’

‘I _can’t_ do it. I can barely understand it.’

‘Maybe you just need to try a bit harder’, said Rose, cheerfully. ‘You know, really concentrate’.

Rey looked up at her sharply and frowned. ‘What do you think I’m doing here? I _am_ trying really hard. I study every single night’.

‘I know’, said Rose, hastily. ‘I just meant…’

‘I’m going to do some combat training’, Rey cut her off shortly, snapping the book shut and rising to her feet.

Stepping out of the tent, she moved off through the trees towards the training area she had set up for herself with Leia’s help. Two of the suns were no longer visible in the sky. The third would remain for several hours more, but it lingered close to the horizon and sent only a weak light sideways through the trees.

She reached the part of the wood she had now spent many hours in and set up a Marksman-H combat remote. She had discovered the small, ball-like seeker droid in a trunk in the _Falcon_. Once activated, it would hover in the air and send bolts of energy towards her at random intervals. These blasts left a nasty sting if she wasn’t quick enough in deflecting them.

She unlatched the newly mended Skywalker lightsaber from her belt and pressed the switch to send a beam of bright blue light from its hilt. The saber had become broken when she had fought over it with _him,_ and although she had managed to reassemble it with Leia’s help, now its blade wasn’t as smooth as it had been before, and its hum was also less even. Still, it worked for her.

She took a deep breath, willing herself to calm down, and activated the training remote, carefully blocking the first few bolts that came flying towards her. As she settled into the exercise, she relaxed as she felt the Force flowing through her. She ducked, leapt and span, each time deflecting the shots of the remote. This was far easier than reading. It felt natural; almost instinctive.

Altering the settings, she went running through the undergrowth, with the seeker droid in pursuit. As she pounded the Earth and swerved through the trees, she swept her saber back and forth. The beam arched over her body in all directions as she continued to bat away the bolts shot from behind her.

On seeing a fallen log blocking her path ahead, she jumped up and launched herself off it to grab a low-hanging pur-darai branch, heaving herself upwards. She now swung between the branches of trees up high, all the while continuing to fend off the droid.

Suddenly, she felt the edges of her mind prick with an unwelcome coldness. Frustrated, she mentally shifted her focus to try to block the spread of this new energy through her mind, but the distraction cost her a bolt to the shoulder and she cursed. Slipping further and further out of her calm mindset, she lashed her saber out sideways towards the seeker droid, but it dodged and sent forth another blast which hit her calf. Crying out she over-balanced and crashed down to the forest floor, grunting in pain as she landed.

‘Rey! Are you alright?’ called a voice from behind her, and she heard the sound of footsteps moving quickly towards her through the brushwood. She turned to see that it was Beaumont.

‘Fine’, she gritted out, embarrassed. She had only spoken to the man once before, when they had physically bumped into one another on the crowded _Falcon_ as it had departed from Crait.

‘Here, let me help you up’, he said, now at her side.

Rey begrudgingly accepted his hand, her wounded pride from the fall hurting at least as much as the new bruises she had obtained.

‘Thanks’, she muttered. ‘Please don’t tell anyone you saw that’.

‘Hey, don’t worry about it. Your secret’s safe with me’, he winked.

‘How come you’re out here anyway?’ Rey asked.

‘Ah…’ he looked sheepish. ‘The truth is, I was watching you train’.

‘What?’ said Rey, surprised.

‘You see, back before I joined the Resistance, I was a professor of the Force. I’m not Force-sensitive myself, but I’ve always been fascinated by it. I couldn’t resist seeing a real Jedi in action’.

‘Well… I guess that makes sense. But I’m not a Jedi yet’.

‘Oh really?’ said Beaumont, sounding interested. ‘In all honesty, I’m not sure I’d really want to be a Jedi if it was me.’

‘Why not?’ Rey asked, intrigued.

‘Well, you have to give up a lot, don’t you? Plus, I don’t think it’s really possible to be that calm and good-hearted constantly. It’s just not in anyone’s nature. It’d be like fighting an endless battle with yourself, all the time’.

‘It is actually’, Rey smiled, warming to the man. ‘That’s exactly how it feels’.


	7. The Dark Path

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We've reached a quarter of the way through! Things start to heat up in this chapter - in more ways than one ;)
> 
> Many thanks for the comments and kudos so far. I really enjoy hearing your reactions and thoughts, so please do share them :D

_KYLO_

At 13:00 Standard Galactic Time, Kylo hammered in his access code once more and re-entered his private quarters. His sparring session with Ap’lek the day before had been so effective at driving him to a state of blissful mindlessness that he’d returned to the lower level again that morning for a second round.

For a moment, he stood just inside his threshold, gazing at a new table (still black) that had appeared beside his chair. There was no sign of his outburst yesterday. A service droid must have cleaned up the splinters and arranged for his furniture to be replaced. That made it table number nine. Or ten. He had lost count.

He continued on into his apartment and towards the fresher, removing his mask as he went. This session with Ap’lek had been intense and long-lasting, with the Knight not letting up whatsoever. That was why Kylo had selected him as a match: the other Knights were equally strong fighters, but none could compare to Ap’lek’s stamina. Now drenched in sweat, Kylo felt paradoxically calm. As the blood surged around his veins, he had burned away all his unwanted thoughts. He reached his bedroom and peeled off the layers of his clothing, discarding each in a pile on the floor.

Stepping into the shower, Kylo let out a deep breath as the streams of water poured over him. He ran his hands over his muscled limbs and torso, spreading a lightly scented soap across his skin.

He was marked by many scars. Some were from injuries gained in conflicts, but most were souvenirs from Snoke’s harsh training regime. One scar stretched from the brow of his face all the way down to the centre of his chest. It was the only one he had suffered from the blade of a lightsaber. He moved his fingers over it.

In an instant, the bright white walls of the fresher disappeared, and he was surrounded instead by a vision of a dark forest with snow on the ground. He was locked in combat with a young woman, her blue lightsaber blade struggling to block his red one as she stood wavering on the edge of a fiery chasm that had just opened up in the ground behind her. Her eyes were closed, with Kylo sensing that she knew she was facing defeat. But then she reopened them, and the fear present moments beforehand had been replaced with fierceness. She ducked under his blade, away from the precipice, and was suddenly on the offensive. She brought her beam sweeping down towards him over and over again, and it was all he could do to shakily block each blow as she advanced.

Kylo yelled out and punched the controls on the shower to turn it off, returning to the present with the cold air now filtering towards him. He had to find a way to overcome this effect that she had on him; it was a weakness. After the way she had left things between them, it was very clear that he’d had no such effect on her. Awash with anguish once more, he stepped out of the room and pulled on a new set of robes and his mask.

At 13:50, Kylo re-entered the _Finalizer’s_ bridge, prompting all attendant personnel to jump up and snap into sharp salutes.

‘Report’, he barked at his chief navigator.

‘We are on course, Supreme Leader’, the man responded, dismayed at the way his superior seemed to be in even more of a bad mood than usual. ‘We should be dropping out of hyperspace in nine minutes’.

‘Is there any sign that the Rivtkans are expecting our arrival?’ Kylo asked Hux, who had wisely been keeping out of the way on the far side of the bridge until directly addressed.

‘None whatsoever, Supreme Leader’, gloated Hux, his face distorted into a sickly grin. There was a fanatic glint in his eyes that appeared whenever the First Order was poised to make a large attack. Kylo knew that the General anticipated with twisted excitement the expansion of the Order’s frontier. Another world under the control of the Order would mean one more people brought into line, one more culture squashed into a regular-shaped mould and standardised with all the others now lying within the Order’s territory.

That was where the General and he differed, Kylo thought. Hux was dedicated to the cause of domination for the sake of the end-goal: the annihilation of diversity and the control of infinite numbers of worlds. Kylo, on the other hand, had always fought for the Order’s objectives purely for the sake of the fighting itself. In his training Snoke had emphasised the dark path that the Order’s expansion offered. He had thirsted for the chaos of war, embracing the anarchy of the battlefield and the carnage of slaughter. It had not mattered to him where the path led, only that it was there to be trod.

Darkness had always been an element of his soul, but ever since his trusted uncle Luke had attacked him, he had actively embraced it. The dark side soothed him. Nurturing the emotions of pain, hatred and betrayal had been far easier than facing the true hurt caused by his family’s rejection of him. His father, Han Solo, had always been too busy running around the galaxy ‘on business’ to spend much time with his son. His mother, Leia, was also usually away from home, petitioning a parliament or campaigning for a cause. Then, aged eight, Ben, as Kylo was known then, had shown signs of Force sensitivity. It had almost been a relief to be sent away to Luke’s Jedi temple to train, for at least there he had the attention of his uncle and a stable group of people surrounding him. But he had been deceived. All of it was a lie. Not even his uncle, who had famously redeemed his Sith grandfather, Darth Vader, could accept the darkness within him.

His skin prickling with anger, Kylo rounded on the head weapons officer sat at the _Finalizer’s_ main command consol. ‘Ready the autocannons!’

‘Yes, sir’, she quickly replied, adjusting the controls before her. ‘All crew – code 320’, she announced on the intercom.

Kylo stalked to the viewport once more, his mask lit with blue light.

‘Prepare to fire’, he ordered.

Moments later, the _Finalizer_ dropped out of hyperspace, the loss of light leaving Kylo in shadow.

‘Autocannons aim’, he called, knowing that at his command the twenty high-impact torpedo weapons affixed to the hull of the ship would be swivelling towards the three largest military bases on the reddish-brown planet that was now ahead of them.

‘Sir, we have an incoming message from Rivtka’s surface’, a communications officer reported.

‘Ignore it’, Kylo hissed. ‘Fire’.


	8. Solitary Life

_REY_

Following a restless night’s sleep, Rey had spent the day working on the _Falcon’s_ hyperdrive matrix once more. She knew the fix should be achievable, if tricky, but she struggled to focus on the job before her. She felt bad at having spoken sharply to Rose the evening before and was also still floundering under the pressure of Leia’s plan for her.

‘Rey!’ called Poe from somewhere inside the ship. ‘Time to stop and get some food’.

‘I’ll come in a bit’, she yelled back. ‘I just want to finish up on this reli-fuse. I’m almost done’.

That was stretching the truth, she knew. But being honest with herself, she just did not feel like being around anyone else right now. She had spent years living a solitary life and, although she deeply loved the friendships that being a member of the Resistance had brought, she was still not used to all the social interaction. It was exhausting.

After a time, she let go of the reli-fuse and threw down her wire-cutters onto the floor of the cockpit. She slumped into the left-hand chair of the two co-pilots’ seats and closed her eyes.

Back in the desert on Jakku, so much had been different. She was left there as a small girl in the guardianship of Unkar Plutt and had never known friendship. At Niima Outpost life was harsh and every scrap had to be fought over and carefully guarded. You could trust no one. The only interactions that took place between people were for survival. Plutt showed her no care; she was valuable to him purely through being useful, nothing more. Their symbiosis was a transaction: food for scavenged ship parts, scavenged ship parts for food. She would never wish to return there now, but life on Jakku had been much more straightforward. Here it was draining trying to read her fellow Resistance-members all the time, attempting to work out what was expected of her in a myriad of different situations.

‘There you are’, spoke an exasperated voice from behind her.

‘What?’ Rey snapped, spinning the chair around. She instantly regretted it. Patience and politeness were two of those qualities she knew you were supposed to harbour towards friends.

‘Hey, it’s only me’, Finn said reproachfully.

‘Sorry’, Rey returned with remorse. ‘I’m just not used to being around people all the time’.

‘You think this is bad’, Finn said, his grin swiftly returning. ‘You should try being in a full mess hall surrounded by hundreds of other troopers. You never get a single moment to yourself there’.

Rey looked at him, thinking. She knew Finn came from a completely different background to her, having once been a First Order storm trooper before he had defected. But she had never really considered just how different their life experiences had been. It was a surprise, really, that despite a complete lack of common ground they had become so close. When she was with Finn, she thought she knew what Leia meant about the natural ‘courage and goodwill’ within people. The ex-trooper had been brought up under a programme aiming to actively crush all feelings of compassion out of him yet, somehow, he projected a warmth and kindness beyond that of anyone Rey had ever met.

‘I really am sorry’, she told him, more sincerely now. ‘Let’s go eat’.

‘Ah, Rey’, Finn said, awkwardly. ‘The food hour ended ages ago. Most people are getting ready to turn in for the evening. But it’s our night on lookout shift, so I was coming to find you so that we could go up to the watchtower in time to start’.

‘What? I can’t have been sat here that long!’

‘You must have drifted off’, he poked at her, laughing. ‘Come on. We don’t want to be late for another shift’.

With that, he retreated from the cockpit. Rey sloped off the chair and followed after him, leaving the wire cutters and reli-fuse where they had fallen.

‘Finn, what gives you the strength to continue this fight?’, Rey asked sometime later, as they looked out from the raised platform where they sat scanning the skyline. ‘Surely hating the First Order isn’t enough?’

He turned to look at her in the gloomy half-light of what passed for night on Zoekta. ‘I guess it’s like something Rose said. We’re not doing this to fight what we hate. We’re doing it to save what we love.’

She stared into his brown eyes and was suddenly reminded of another pair.

She decided to stand up and change position, hoping to shake such thoughts.

‘Here, hold these for a moment’, she said, passing Finn the retri-noculars that they were using to extend their sight lines.

But as he took the item from her, their hands brushed, and a memory flashed across her mind. Her fingers were touching those of the man who the other eyes belonged to. She had been seated on a stool and huddled in a blanket; her face lit by the glow of a small fire before her. Present only as a mirage through the Force bond that they shared, he sat looking intently at her from across the flames. Their bond was new, having opened seemingly randomly just a few times previously. But this time had felt different. Tentatively, guided only by a feeling, she slowly reached her hand out towards him. He raised his hand too, his fingers inching instinctively towards hers. She felt nervous, but also hopeful beyond her wildest imagination. In his eyes she thought she saw the same emotions mirrored back at her. As they closed the space between them, she _felt_ him. This time, he was not just a vision. He was tangibly _there_.

Rey pulled her hand back sharply from Finn’s as though she had been burned, taking a quick breath as her heart hammered in her chest.

‘What is it?’, he said.

Rey looked at her friend. She was not sure how much longer she could bear shouldering the weight of that secret alone. ‘Finn, I…’

_Beep-beep-beep---beep-beep-beep---beep…_

The alarm from the communications board blared out into the still air, making them both jump.

‘It’s a distress call!’, said Finn, shooting up to the panel. ‘From the Mid-Rim planet of Rivtka. That makes no sense. The First Order aren’t carrying out any attacks that far towards the Core. The Rivtkans must have…’.

He went quiet.

‘What?’, said Rey, confused as to why Finn had paused.

‘It’s just stopped.’

‘False alarm?’ suggested Rey.

‘Maybe. Either way it would have initially been sent hours ago. Rivtka’s several quadrants from here, so the signal would take a while to reach us. We’d better alert the General.’


	9. Gathering

_FINN_

Leia had been anxious to hear of the distress call from Rivtka, and had immediately roused one of the lieutenants, Connix, and asked her to analyse all channels for any further news of what might have happened to the planet. Finn and Rey were now joining their fellow Resistance members in the middle of the clearing to hear her findings. Most had been asleep and so had come variously dressed in an odd assortment of clothing ranging from sleepwear to full action gear.

‘As you all by now know, a short while ago we picked up a distress signal from the Mid-Rim planet Rivtka’, Leia announced to those assembled. ‘Lieutenant Connix has now examined all wavelengths from that system and those nearby, and I’m afraid I have called you to this emergency meeting to relate some distressing news.’

Finn looked across the circle of gathered people and caught eyes with Poe, who looked grim.

‘Rivtka’s three main military bases have all been utterly annihilated by torpedo cannon attack from a First Order ship. Thankfully, we have reason to believe that casualties were minimal, as the bases ran on highly automated systems. However, the scale of the damage has meant that the Rivtkans have now surrendered to First Order control.’

Audible groans were released by those stood around.

‘But that’s millions of people!’ exclaimed Poe.

‘Yes’, said Leia, grimly. ‘While no First Order ship matches the firepower of Starkiller Base, we have reason to believe that they have continued to upgrade the weapons systems of their Resurgent-class vessels. As such, the First Order’s capacity to overcome the standard defences held by most settled planets has been enhanced to such a level that few will now be able to repel them.’

‘What’s more’, Connix chipped in, ‘Rivtka does not appear to have been the only planet attacked. While not totally clear, our analysis suggests that several more planets in nearby systems have also had military targets struck. And it’s not too great a leap to imagine that further worlds, beyond the scope of our sensors, have also been assaulted’.

Just then, the central console blared into life again, and Connix left the circle to attend to it.

‘Why are they doing this?’ cried Rose. ‘I thought they were consolidating their control over their existing territories, while also searching for us. Nothing’s changed which would prompt them to move in a new direction.’

‘Well, we know one thing. Kylo Ren is turning out to be just as ruthless as his predecessor Snoke’, Poe said heatedly.

Finn noticed that at these words Rey cast her eyes to the ground, but he nodded his head fervently in agreement with Poe. Despite his upbringing in the First Order’s storm trooper programme, Finn had personally encountered Kylo Ren on very few occasions. Each time, though, every fibre in his body had told him that the man was a heartless aggressor. Upon hearing of the huge attack on Rivtka, Finn felt his blood begin to boil.

‘…We have to fight!’ someone was saying.

‘General’, Connix spoke, re-joining the group. ‘We’ve just received a transmission from an ally on Sinta Glacier Colony. It appears that the First Order is planning to continue to carry out attacks. Our ally has managed to gain intel that the next planet to be hit will be Kijimi’.

‘No!’ yelled Poe, in a strangled voice.

‘What is it?’ asked Finn, concerned.

‘I have… friends… there’, Poe said.

‘Friends or not, the people of Kijimi do not deserve to lose their independence. We cannot stand by and allow this to happen’, said Leia, firmly.

Mutterings of assent rippled around the circle.

‘Kijimi will be attacked by the _Steadfast’_ , continued Connix. ‘The ship is refuelling at Sinta as we speak, preparing to make the jump to that system’.

‘There has to be a way to stop them. There has to be’, Finn stated with urgency.

‘If I might be so bold as to make a suggestion’, said C-3PO, stepping forward and raising one of his golden metallic arms. ‘From the schematics that R2 has been examining recently, it is clear that the new upgrades of the First Order ships have included a higher level of reliance on computerised systems than in the past. For instance, we know that a new form of trooper-droid, or ‘troid’, has been brought into service on at least two of the Resurgent-class vessels, including the _Steadfast_. It might be possible to interfere with the functioning of such artificial lifeforms.’

R2-D2 beeped affirmatively.

‘Right!’ agreed Rose, passionately. ‘We could try to hack into their code and reprogram them to shut the ship’s weapons systems down. We’d have to be close by, though, like actually on Kijimi’s surface’.

‘That would mean we’d only be able to do it once the _Steadfast_ had already arrived in Kijimi’s system’, Rey spoke, her mind seeming fully focused on the plan now.

Leia turned to Chewie. ‘How operational is the _Falcon_?’ she asked.

‘Wuh-uhh’, the Wookie replied.

‘Alright’, she continued with authority. ‘Poe, make contact with your friends on Kijimi. Tell them to prepare for our arrival. We’ll need shelter and some hardware to work from. Groups one to five, you will work this mission. Rey and group six, you are to remain here at the base. I want all crew boarded on the _Falcon_ in 15 minutes. Dismissed’.

The Resistance members quickly disbanded, hurrying back and forth as they pulled on clothes, collected their belongings and loaded some key equipment onto the _Falcon_. Finn turned to speak to Rey but found that she was standing stock still.

‘General’, she said. ‘I don’t understand. Why am I not going?’

‘You must continue with your training’, Leia responded. ‘It is imperative that you find a way to reach the galaxy’s people through the Force and turn their hearts. We cannot afford to lose you. This mission will be exceptionally dangerous’.

‘Then why are you going?’ Rey retorted.

Leia lifted her gaze to the shifting branches of the pur-darai, watching them yield as the slightest hint of a breeze moved through them. Then she glanced at the lightsaber on Rey’s belt before looking her in the eye at last and saying, simply, ‘I have a feeling that I must’.


	10. The Archives

_KYLO_

‘Any sign of the Resistance yet?’ Kylo breathed down Hux’s neck.

‘No, Supreme Leader’, replied Hux impatiently. ‘But if they are on an Outer Rim planet, it would take a while for them to pick up on our new movements’.

Kylo grimaced beneath his mask and stalked over to one of the bridge’s viewports. He gazed out at Rivtka, which was presently to the starboard side of the _Finalizer_. Large amounts of debris now clouded its atmosphere from where the military bases had been torpedoed, but you could still make out three large, dark scars on the surface. The Rivtkan’s anti-missile defences had been no match for the firepower of the _Finalizer_.

As he stared at the marks, Kylo felt numb. Though not on this scale, he had carried out endless numbers of attacks before. With one exception, he had never questioned or regretted the violence; it had been part of his righteous journey into a deeper union with the dark side of the Force. It had felt required; meaningful. Now, though, that sense of purpose was not present. Instead of feeling heady waves of darkness wash through him, he felt nothing.

A blankness had engulfed him.

For such a long time, the dark side had been his anchor. It rooted his existence in the universe. But that tie had somehow withered. He felt detached and cast adrift, both in the plane of day-to-day life and in the Force.

The _Finalizer_ shuddered, as yet another small piece of Rivtkan debris collided with its shields, and Kylo moved over to a communications deck.

‘Get me Pryde’, he directed the officer in charge.

The officer dialled a sequence of codes and General Pryde’s face appeared on a holoscreen, the bridge of the _Steadfast_ clearly visible behind him.

‘Report’, Kylo commanded in a muted voice.

‘Supreme Leader, we have completed our attack on the warship stations on the planet Gollotha and are presently refuelling at Sinta as per your instructions’, Pryde spoke coldly. ‘Furthermore, we have now received messages of surrender from all fifteen inhabited planets in the Gollotha system’.

‘Good’, Kylo responded. ‘Continue to the next planet which we have identified as strategic and prepare to fire. The _Finalizer_ will be remaining in orbit around Rivtka for now.’

‘Supreme Leader, if I may, might it not be wiser to consolidate our hold on our new territories before any further expansion? For instance, the current uncertainty means we are at an advantage to force highly favourable terms of access to the resource-rich colonies in the Gollotha system.’

‘Do not question my commands, Pryde’, Kylo retorted icily, and with that he closed the channel.

He was displeased with the General’s tone and knew that Pryde would not be alone in challenging his plan. He resolved to dispatch the Knights of Ren; one to each of the lead ships in his fleet. It was time to move on from using their presence to intimidate the lower ranks on the _Finalizer_ , and instead utilise them to keep his Generals in line.

‘Supreme Leader’, moaned Hux, approaching him now. ‘We have already made huge gains. Why not press our advantage, pause our assault and establish decisive rule over these new planets for now.’

‘The Resistance will not put aside their extreme vulnerability and come out of hiding for marginal changes to our territory’, Kylo responded in a monotonous tone. ‘They will only emerge if they think we are rapidly moving to strip the liberty of billions upon billions of the galaxy’s people’.

‘But surely…’

‘Enough’, barked Kylo, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. He brought his arm upwards and closed his fist tightly in mid-air, using the Force to briefly shut off Hux’s windpipe. ‘Have you sent out the leak as we agreed, making it clear that the next planet in line for destruction is Kijimi?’

‘Y..yes… S… Supreme Leader’, Hux gasped as his face steadily turned a deeper shade of puce.

Kylo grunted in approval, released his chokehold on Hux and stormed from the room.

He made his way through the _Finalizer’s_ corridors and passed into a quieter section of the ship. Passing through a doorway, he flipped a switch in the panel next to him and watched as wall-mounted brackets of pure white radiance instantly flickered into life. They illuminated a long, thin gallery which housed the _Finalizer_ ’s archives.

Seeking to distract himself while he waited for some sign of the Resistance, and not wishing to be in reach of Hux’s moaning any longer, Kylo had retreated to this library. It held extensive records about the First Order’s past operations. Alone and unlikely to be disturbed, he removed his mask and set it down on the bench in the middle of the room. He then began scanning the shelves before him, considering which data pad to extract and read.

His head ached following his exchanges with Pryde and Hux. Leadership was proving more of a challenge than he had imagined it would be. In truth, he had never given the matter much thought. Becoming Supreme Leader had never been his intention. But in a split moment, when the opportunity had presented itself to him, he took it. He had been drawn to the power like a magnet.

Yet he was finding the role to be quite tedious. There were endless reports to file and accounts to sign off, all the while being alert for signs of dissent amongst his officers. Plus, despite being able to order attacks, he was far removed from the frontline of conflict; distant and cut off. What was the point, he asked himself, in being at the head of the greatest military power in the galaxy, if it brought you no satisfaction?

The problem, he thought, was that he did not know what he really wanted.

Well, he supposed that if he was being truly honest with himself, he did. He wanted _her_.

_Rey_.

He allowed himself to mouth her name, his lips soft as they wrapped around the word. He knew he missed her, and he hated himself for it. She had left him and their Force bond had not reopened since. He had offered her everything, tried to tell her that she was everything, but she had left all the same. She had said that she would help him, but in the end, she had turned out to be just the same as Luke, his parents and all the rest. She had given up on him. And now, deep down, he knew the agonising truth that even if he did trap the Resistance, capture Rey and bring her before him, he could not force her to be by his side.

Which left him with the question of what he really hoped to achieve by being Supreme Leader. He wondered, for a moment, what purpose Snoke found in it. He knew very little about his predecessor’s plans or background, having never felt able to ask. Their relationship had always been highly uneven; Snoke knew every minute detail about him yet revealed nothing about himself.

Kylo decided, then, to find out. He walked over to a section holding records on the senior members of the First Order and removed the data pad on Snoke from its slot. Turning back to face the middle of the room, he sat down at the bench and began to read.

There was little information about Snoke’s earlier life, but small details were recorded. What Kylo did find surprised him. Snoke had been a physician on Bespin, leading what appeared to be a quite unremarkable life except for his Force sensitivity and interest in the dark side. Then one day he had met with a science officer from the planet Eadu. Apparently, the man had previously been stationed on the second Death Star under Emperor Palpatine, fleeing on an escape pod just before the battle station’s implosion. Following this meeting, suddenly Snoke’s character appeared to have changed completely. He left his medical work behind and focused fully on developing his Force powers. Within a few years, he had founded what was to become the First Order.

The record did not give much sense of Snoke’s priorities while he was Supreme Leader, however, so Kylo replaced the data pad on its shelf and found another which was a log summarising all the yearly spending plans of the Order, dating back to its foundation. Sitting back at the bench, Kylo scrolled through the figures shown on the screen. Again, what he found surprised him. Under Snoke, a huge proportion of the Order’s budget had been spent on research into advanced navigation technologies, particularly those to enable travel through space quagmires such as magnetic cross fields, solar winds and gravity wells.

Setting the second pad aside, too, Kylo returned to the shelves and found a third one, which held data on Snoke’s designs for the Order’s expansion. Not bothering to sit this time, Kylo flicked through the computerised pages where he stood. He noted with interest that the planets and moons that Snoke had targeted for domination were all rich in minerals used in transportation machinery. Moreover, Snoke’s trooper recruitment programme seemed to have selected all those with the most academic minds to work on navigation research activities.

All this confused Kylo greatly. Snoke had never shared any of his plans with him, unless he was directly involved in executing them. In any case Kylo had been too focused on developing his own powers to pay much notice to overall patterns in the First Order’s spending and employment. But, even so, he suspected that most of the First Order’s officers and generals would, like him, be unaware of this undercurrent to First Order strategy.

From what he had read today, it almost seemed like the Snoke who had lived on Bespin had undergone a personality swap and then devoted his life to building an organisation primarily for the purpose of finding a way to access somewhere exceptionally difficult to reach.


	11. The Full Picture

_REY_

Rey sat cross-legged on a broad stone beneath a particularly tall pur-darai tree that she liked to use for meditation.

She had left the clearing as soon as Leia had finished giving her the order to stay on Zoekta, brushing away Finn’s attempts to console her. She’d had no desire to stay and see the _Falcon_ depart with almost the entire Resistance on board. She already had one painful memory of being forced to watch as a ship carrying those she loved flew away from her. That ship had never returned, and she could not stand to think about the same thing happening this time.

Her heart had been heavy as she’d heard the news about the conquest of Rivtka, and her thoughts had turned once more to the man who had been occupying the fringes of her mind for months now. She had felt the last shreds of hope that she had held about Kylo Ren dying inside of her. How could she ever have been so blind as to think that he could be turned to the light side of the Force? She felt less sure of her own sense of judgement than ever.

She knew that she could not afford to wallow in her own emotions now, though. She had to focus on the task at hand. There was so much more at stake here than her feelings. Leia had trusted her to complete her Force training and find a way to reach people’s hearts, and she was determined not to let her, and the galaxy, down.

So, despite having had a full night without any sleep, she pushed away her anxiety, pain and loneliness. Instead she closed her eyes and took in deep, steadying breaths.

Slowly, her sense of self diminished and she became more aware of the beings around her. In the branches overhead, she could hear the call of a do-ji bird, and further off the scuffle of an aelid. She noticed the roughness of the rock beneath her fingertips, and the stillness of the air around her. She welcomed these notes on her senses, letting each float across her mind and root her in her surroundings. Even the smell of the gently rotting pur-darai leaves on the forest floor made her feel connected to the sacred relationship between life and death that pervaded all existence.

But all too soon, she became aware of a chill at the edges of her mind, and her thoughts strayed. Unhelpful snide remarks spoke with her inner voice.

‘You can’t do this. You’re weak. You’ll never be a Jedi’.

She fought to regain her meditative state, but her focus was broken. She grimaced in frustration and opened her eyes, jumping in shock when she found that she was not alone.

‘I thought I might find you here’.

‘Beaumont’, she greeted him, smiling weakly. ‘Group six, huh?’

‘That’s right. Someone needs to stay here and keep an eye on young Force-users falling out of trees’.

She grinned a bit wider, in spite of herself.

‘I’ve brought you some breakfast’, he continued. ‘There didn’t seem much point in having a proper food hour what with there being only five of us left.’

‘Thanks’, she nodded appreciatively, taking a vegi-mix bowl and a couple of nutri-bars his outstretched hands.

Beaumont sat down on a log lying near to her stone as she set the nutri-bars to one side. She ripped the seal off the top of the bowl, fished a fork out from inside and began to eat. The Resistance’s meals were plain by most people’s standards, but after years of always struggling for food they tasted wonderful to Rey. She enjoyed a moment of brief contentment.

‘Tell me, Rey’, said Beaumont. ‘What’s troubling you?’

‘What do you mean?’ she replied as she chewed.

‘Just now, when I approached you with the food, you seemed… agitated’.

‘Oh, it’s nothing’, Rey said airily, batting her hand through the air.

Beaumont looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

‘Well…’, Rey floundered. Why shouldn’t she tell him? What harm could it do? ‘To be honest, I’m having trouble with my training. Leia expects me to be a ‘beacon’ for everyone. Her plan is that people will be inspired by me and find courage within themselves to rise up against the First Order’.

‘That seems to place a lot of pressure on you’, Beaumont responded.

Rey hung her head. ‘I want to help’, she said miserably. ‘I just don’t know how. I’m finding it so difficult to use the Force as a Jedi would’.

‘Perhaps that’s the problem.’

‘What?’ Rey lifted her head, meeting his pale blue gaze.

‘You’re struggling to fully wield the Force in the way of a Jedi’.

‘I’m not about to train as a Sith’, she snorted, setting her now empty bowl down and beginning on the nutri-bars.

‘I don’t mean that’, Beaumont continued, calmly. ‘I mean that the Jedi take a very narrow view of the Force. By only studying Jedi texts you’re not getting the full picture. If one is to understand ‘the great mystery’ one must study all its aspects. I could help you’.

‘How?’ she asked, unconvinced yet intrigued.

‘Well, I’m no Jedi Master, of course. But it has been my life’s work to study the Force. I know of ways to commune with it that are far beyond the scope of anything you might find in your books.’

‘Prove it’, said Rey.

‘Alright’, he smiled quietly. ‘I want you to close your eyes and imagine the deepest feeling of hunger that you possibly can’.

That was easy, Rey thought. Back on Jakku she had suffered some bad breaks which took a long while to heal what with the lack of medical care available. Each time she had been severely injured she had been unable to scavenge for weeks. With no old ship parts to trade with Unkar Plutt there had been no food, save for rotten scraps she had foraged as she had limped through the backways of Niima. The hunger had been intense. As she remembered it and allowed the feeling to fill her up, her mouth went dry and her stomach seemed to inflame.

‘Good’, Beaumont said slowly. ‘Now, look in your bowl’.

Rey opened her eyes, did as she was bid and cried out.

Her breakfast bowl had refilled with more vegi-mix.

‘Go ahead. Taste it’, he said, watching her intently now.

Unsteadily, she licked her parched lips, grabbed her bowl and brought her mounded fork to her mouth.

The food tasted just as good as her first breakfast, and the soreness in her stomach began to subside again.

Her eyes lifted to Beaumont in wonder.

‘I must say’, he said. ‘I didn’t expect you to master that trick so quickly. Just think of how much progress we’ll make if we work together’.

Rey nodded enthusiastically, now totally convinced.

‘What’s that?’ asked Beaumont suddenly, as the movement of her head caused her necklace to catch the morning light.

‘My chain? Oh, I’ve always had it. It was something my parents gave me, I think, before they left me when I was small.’ She had always hung on to the item, resisting the urge to sell it even when she was at her most desperate. It was her last connection to her family. She used to keep it in one of her pockets, out of sight of her fellow Niima residents who might have been tempted to steal it from her. But lately she had taken to wearing it openly as intended.

‘May I?’ asked Beaumont, holding out a hand to examine the pendant with its highly unusual design. It was shaped almost like a large-beaked bird taking flight, with an arrowhead at its base. The symbol was formed from a cloudy green mineral the name of which Rey did not know.

‘Sure’, Rey said, passing it to him.

Beaumont lifted it up, turning the pendant over a few times before his eyes and letting its chain run through his fingers. His gaze darted from the necklace to her and back again, before finally returning to rest on her.

If Rey didn’t know that Beaumont was not Force-sensitive, she would have thought that he’d entered into a nutrition meditation of his own. The hunger in his eyes as he looked at her was immense.


	12. It's A...

_FINN_

‘So, who are these friends of yours?’ Finn asked Poe.

Poe and Chewie were currently sitting in the _Falcon’s_ twin co-pilot seats as the ship sped through hyperspace towards Kijimi. Finn had entered the cockpit along with BB-8 after doing some final checks on their stock of hand weapons.

‘Just some folks I used to work with’, Poe responded vaguely.

‘Doing what?’ Finn pressed, bemused by Poe’s attempt at being casual.

‘Oh, you know, piloting… stuff’.

BB-8 gave him a quizzical look.

‘Piloting stuff, eh?’ repeated Finn.

‘Hmmhmm’, Poe nodded.

Just then, a message flashed up on the _Falcon’s_ monitor stating that they were nearing their arrival.

‘We’re almost there’, Poe said hastily. ‘You’d better go and tell the others to prepare to land.’

As the _Falcon_ dropped out of hyperspace and they homed in on their destination, Leia gathered together the five groups of Resistance members on board for a final meeting in the ship’s main living quarters.

‘Remember’, she said, ‘the _Steadfast_ is expected to target a huge armaments complex just to the north of Kijimi’s largest settlement. Our plan is to get to the rendezvous point with Poe’s contacts and get under cover as soon as possible. Once we reach our place of operation, groups one to three will set up the computer systems in preparation for the hacking. Meanwhile group four will climb the radar tower and group five will act as look-out. By now all First Order troopers should have been evacuated from the city, so that should make our path much easier.’

‘How long until the _Steadfast_ arrives?’ asked Rose.

Leia turned to Connix who, upon checking her display screen, said, ‘About 30 minutes from now’.

‘It is imperative that we are in position to begin our operation as soon as possible’, continued Leia. ‘We will only have a narrow window in which to complete our mission. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the risk that we are taking in putting ourselves near the epicentre of an imminent torpedo attack. However, we have to be on the ground to tap into that radar tower to boost our signal enough to reach the _Steadfast_.’

Finn looked at the anxious faces around him.

‘Come on’, he said in a rallying voice. ‘This will work. And when it does, we will have protected the freedom of hundreds of thousands of people’.

Rose smiled at him, warmly, though with some trace of doubt still left on her face.

‘Entering Kijimi’s atmosphere now’, came Poe’s voice calling from the cockpit. ‘Get ready to disembark!’

Chewie and Poe landed the _Falcon_ in the grounds of a set of warehouse sheds, which appeared to be abandoned. The Resistance members all hurriedly moved down the loading ramp and into one of the buildings, as had been agreed beforehand. Kijimi’s air, while breathable, was exceptionally cold, and even inside the breath of each person was clearly visible. Poe brought up the rear, closing the door behind him. Chewie was to stay on the ship to guard it.

‘I can’t believe you had the guts to show up here again, Poe’, came a feminine drawl from somewhere in the darkness to their left.

Just then, overhead lamps flickered into life and illuminated a figure dressed in a red jumpsuit complete with bronze embellishments and mask.

Finn was surprised to see that she was pointing two pistols at Poe who, understandably, looked a little nervous.

‘Zorii! It’s good to see you!’ he laughed, shakily. ‘Everyone, this is Zorii Bliss. Zorii, everyone’.

‘You know that last spice load you absconded with cost me six months’ of profit’, Zorii gritted out her attention still on Poe.

‘Wait’, said Finn, making the connection in his head and turning to Poe. ‘Were you a spice runner?’

BB-8 squeaked in shock.

‘Look, we’ve got bigger things to worry about right now, ok?’ said Poe, reddening slightly.

Zorii lowered her pistols and glanced around at them all.

‘Are you certain the planet is about to be attacked?’

‘In about 20 minutes’, Leia said, stepping forward. ‘Please, we came here to help’.

Zorii looked at Leia, seeming to size her up, before returning her pistols to their holsters at her belt.

‘Follow me’, she said, making off through another doorway and down a dank corridor.

Leia went after her and everyone else followed. As they walked, they passed an open doorway which led into a packed makeshift bar. People were chatting and music blared out loudly. Finn just caught site of a one-eyed barman noticing them and shaking his head in disapproval.

He wanted to yell out and warn them all of what was about to happen, but he knew that would only generate panic.

At the end of the corridor was a smith’s workshop. The room was quite large but crammed with endless numbers of mechanical parts and pieces of technical equipment. On a workbench at the centre of it all stood a diminutive figure with large dark eyes and white whiskers.

‘Hellowww’, it said, ‘I Babu Frik’.

‘Why hello!’ replied C-3PO, who was standing nearby.

‘Great to see you, Babu’, Poe said warmly, ‘Ok, here’s what we’re going to do. Groups one to three stay here with Babu and get set up. Rose, do you think you have everything you’ll need?’

Rose looked at the machines around her and nodded.

‘Alright. Group four, come with Zorii and I to the radar tower. Finn, are you alright to take group five back to the warehouse to keep watch?’

‘Yes’, Finn said. ‘Just give us the signal when you’re ready.’

Finn nodded to the three other members of his group and together they headed back down the corridor from which they had just come. On reaching the first warehouse space again, they split up. Two middle-aged men, one wiry and one stout, climbed up to rafters at either end of the shed and took up positions spying out of the cracked round windows high up there. Meanwhile, the older battle-worn woman who was with them headed back to stand guard at the doorway which led to the bar. Finn took up position just outside the main entranceway, seeking to look casual as he leaned back against the corrugated iron walls.

From where he stood, to the left he could just make out group four entering the compound of the radar tower behind Zorii and starting to climb the mast. As they got higher, their outlines stood out dark against the dying light of the pale sky. Back inside Babu’s workshop, he imagined Rose, Connix and the others feverishly setting up monitors and writing code in an attempt to be ready to hack the First Order’s troids. No doubt Leia was watching over them, as calm a presence as always in the face of mortal danger.

He sighed and looked around. At street level, not a soul was to be seen. The place was deserted. Even the _Falcon_ was completely still, and Finn was surprised to note that Chewie wasn’t sat on the ramp keeping guard as had been planned.

It was quiet. Too quiet.

‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this’, he muttered under his breath, glancing around.

Just then the silence was ripped open with the sound of blaster fire, and the twilight sky was pierced by flashes of red. Finn twisted towards the source of the noise to see that the group on the radar tower were under attack. To his dismay, he saw someone cry out and fall. He was about to rush over to them when his attention was pulled back in the other direction by new blaster fire coming from his right. A unit of storm troopers was approaching him, their weapons raised. Leia had been wrong. The First Order had not evacuated its troopers from the city. Breathing hard, he quickly ducked back inside the warehouse and barricaded the door, hearing the soldiers’ heavy footfall as they pounded towards him.

He experienced only a moment’s respite, though, as he found that yet another unit of storm troopers was already inside the warehouse. Out of the corners of his eyes he saw the two men who had been stationed at either end fall as they were hit by enemy fire.

‘No’, said Finn, staggering backwards as the realisation hit him that the troopers must have already entered Babu’s workshop.

That was his last thought for a while, however, as just then a stunning blast hit him squarely in the chest.


	13. An Old Master

_KYLO_

Kylo was pacing the bridge of the _Finalizer_ once more, unaware of the tense sideways glances he was receiving from the crew stationed there.

The ship was still in orbit around Rivtka, though the shudders from planetary debris hitting its hull shields had got fewer and farther between.

When the sound of an incoming call flared up on a communications panel, Kylo practically pounced on the receiver button.

‘Pryde’, he said feverishly in his modulated voice. ‘What news?’

‘We’ve got them, Supreme Leader. They became ensnared in our trap, just as you predicted.’

‘Is she with them?’

‘Who, Supreme Leader?’

‘The scavenger girl from Jakku’, Kylo replied, almost whining in frustration and need. ‘Is she with them?’

‘No, Supreme Leader’.

It felt like a punch in the stomach. His mind started to slip into freefall.

‘But we do have about a dozen other operatives’, Pryde continued. ‘Including none other than the leader of the Resistance, Leia Organa herself’.

Kylo stilled, the sound of his mother’s name temporarily rooting him to reality.

‘Where are you keeping them?’

‘They’re in the _Steadfast’s_ holding cells. The ground troops captured them just before we arrived at the planet, and we were able to transport them straight up. Before we incarcerated them, we made them stand at one of our viewports and watch as we obliterated Kijimi’s main city. It was a most satisfying occasion’.

Pryde seemed to be savouring the memory, but Kylo felt like all his nerve-endings were knife edges.

‘I did not order you to do that’, he spoke coldly.

‘Supreme Leader…’, Pryde started to respond, his tone far from reverential.

Kylo cut across him. ‘I ordered you to get in position to attack the weapons complexes to the north of the city, and then to lie in wait for the Resistance. I said nothing of torpedoing the civilians.’

Pryde opened his mouth to speak, his face contorted into something like a snarl.

‘I don’t take orders from you anymore’, he snapped after a moment. ‘I have just had contact from an old master whom I served in the Galactic Civil War. He is a far more worthy leader than you will ever be. My allegiance is to him, now.’

With that Pryde cut the call, leaving Kylo, and the rest of the crew listening in, stunned.

A solid minute passed in which no one moved or made a sound. Not even Hux dared speak.

Then Kylo threw his masked head back and roared in anger, sending all nearby literally ducking for cover.

Without conscious thought, he reached for his lightsaber and set it ablaze. He then proceeded to tear about the bridge, bringing the plasma blade crashing down over and over again on anything within reach. Screens were split through with charred cracks, chairs became smouldering wrecks and consoles whizzed and died. All around cowered or fled, and the controls of the ship were effectively destroyed.

Eventually, Kylo’s movements slowed and came to a stop.

Breathing heavily, he ripped off his cape and mask and threw both items hard to the ground. The mask smashed once more into sharp fragments, Albrekh’s handiwork in ruins.

Finally, he turned and stalked out of the room.

Pounding without direction through the maze of the _Finalizer’s_ corridors, a thousand thoughts ran across his mind: Rey; his mother; the people of Kijimi; this resurrected usurper of his title…

Pryde’s words thundered in his ears. ‘An old master…’

The only master that Pryde would have served in the Civil War was Emperor Palpatine. But Palpatine was known to have died.

Just then Kylo’s path through the hallways crossed with that of a science officer. The young man looked instantly terrified, turned on his heels and sped back in the direction from which he had come.

Kylo was reminded of another science officer.

No.

Not possible.

Unless…

In his Force training Kylo had read about a fabled dark side technique where Sith could detach their spirits from their dying bodies and possess the body of another who was close by. The process was said to be invisible, with the person being possessed having no idea that a second consciousness now sat layered beneath their own. The Sith consciousness could choose to dominate their prey’s mind at any moment, with the victim having no awareness of this occurring.

What if the science officer who Kylo had read about in the archives as having escaped the second Death Star had not been simply a science officer? What if Palpatine had detached his spirit as he fell down the reactor shaft and latched onto the man?

And then, what if years later when that officer had visited Snoke on Bespin, Palpatine had transferred his spirit across to possess Snoke instead? Kylo had no doubt that Palpatine would have preferred to possess someone who was Force-sensitive, and with an interest in the dark side at that.

All of this would mean that Palpatine was the one who had founded the First Order and Palpatine was the one who had been responsible for his own training in the dark side. What was more, it would mean that Kylo’s grandfather, Vader, had not brought about a balance in the Force, as had long been assumed in his act of killing Palpatine. The ancient Jedi prophecy predicting the coming of a Chosen One who would strike an equilibrium between the light side and dark side once and for all remained unfulfilled.

Kylo’s mind was reeling, but the trail ran cold.

Kylo had killed Snoke, yet here Pryde was saying that his old master had returned to giving him orders.

Which begged the question of who Palpatine’s spirit had passed into next, upon Snoke’s death. Who had been positioned closest to Snoke in his throne room as Kylo had struck the fatal blow?

As the answer came to him, Kylo collapsed to his knees.

_Rey_.

Her name reverberated round and round his head until eventually his thoughts coalesced into one principle that engulfed him entirely. He _had_ to get to her.

Although he still had no idea where in the galaxy she was, he knew that his best chance of an answer now lay with her friends and his mother, aboard the _Steadfast_.

He leapt to his feet, made an about turn and raced through one more set of corridors to reach a small hangar. Sat in its centre was a TIE Whisper shuttle that Kylo held reserved for his particular use. The ship had a small, round central section in which the cockpit and engines were located. Attached on either side were two massive, glossy, triangular wings. These faced forwards like giant pincers when in flight.

He climbed into the sole pilot’s seat and initiated the start-up sequence.

As the auto-primer completed and the engines hummed into life, Kylo jammed the gears into action. Without a single glance over his shoulder, he tore out of the belly of the _Finalizer_ and into the black.


	14. Bad News

_REY_

A bubrat scuttled nervously across Zoekta’s forest floor, its iridescent back catching the early morning light. Rey stared at it intensely. She was sat cross-legged once more on her meditation stone and was currently fully focused on projecting her will onto the skittish creature before her.

The bubrat paused in its scuffling, shivered and rolled over.

Feeling power flowing through her now, Rey tilted her head very slightly to one side. She imagined pouring every ounce of her intent into the animal and was pleased when it subsequently curled up into a tight ball.

Satisfied, she let her focus relax. The bubrat righted itself and plodded on, looking somewhat dazed.

A body-grip was just one of many new techniques that Beaumont had taught her yesterday after she had agreed to work with him. It was similar to a Jedi mind trick but allowed the wielder influence over another’s actions in addition to their thoughts. She and Beaumont had spent the full day training together and had continued late into the evening. Beaumont had seemed as excited as she was – ecstatic even. With every step she made, and every new skill that she mastered, he praised her profusely. Eventually, though, Rey’s lack of sleep had finally caught up with her and she had retired to her tent.

She had slept fitfully, with feverish dreams. The moment she had awoken she had rushed back here to wait impatiently for Beaumont so that they could resume their practice again. She felt fidgety and full of giddy anticipation. The Force had begun to work for her in entirely new ways, as if it had taken on a new colour. She sensed a whole new world of possibilities opening up before her.

After what seemed like an age, at last she saw Beaumont approaching through the trees. Unexpectedly, he wore a worried expression.

‘Rey, I have some bad news’, he said heavily as he reached her. ‘The plan failed. Kijimi’s main city was destroyed and our fellow Resistance members have been captured by the First Order’.

Rey’s heart plummeted, crashing down from exorbitant heights to a tremendous low. Her fear for her friends exploded inside her, along with a stabbing ache for the people of Kijimi.

‘Are you certain? How do you know?’

He hesitated, before responding, ‘An encoded message came through just now. I’m sorry’.

Rey closed her eyes and allowed her pain and fear to envelop her. She was once again totally and utterly alone. The fate of the galaxy was now more in her hands than ever, and yet she could do nothing. She was stranded on Zoekta without any transport, and with no real plan as to how to fulfil Leia’s ambition for her, despite her progress with Beaumont. Despair washed through her.

‘What are we going to do?’ she croaked.

‘Rey’, Beaumont said steadily. ‘You have so much potential. I know you can free your friends, and the galaxy. You just need to expand your power. Only then will you be strong enough to save them. I do know of a way to do this, but it would be… difficult’.

She looked up at him in surprise.

‘There is a planet, deep in the Unknown Regions’, he explained. ‘It’s called Exegol. At its core lies a vergence where the Force is concentrated with exceptional potency. If you travelled to this nexus, you would be able to draw on this well of power to amplify your desires and project your will across the galaxy. Peoples of all worlds would be swayed by your commands. They would all rise up and overthrow the First Order, should you will it. You would be unstoppable.’

Beaumont had an almost manic gleam in his eyes now, which unsettled Rey. Yet his words were a song. If she was able to extend the reach of her influence to such a great extent, she could inspire all those colonised by the First Order to liberate themselves.

Hadn’t this been exactly what Leia wanted? To find a way to illuminate people’s minds and free their hearts?

She turned back to Beaumont.

‘How do we get to Exegol?’

His lips curled upwards, and his voice became breathier and more high-pitched.

‘The journey there is treacherous. To reach it you need a special wayfinder, and there were only two such objects ever made. The closest one to here is located on the Ocean Moon of Endor, Kef Bir, hidden deep in the wreckage of the second Death Star.’

‘But we have no ship’.

Beaumont was untroubled. ‘Maz Kanata arrived late last night. We could borrow her light craft.’

‘What? That’s great! I must speak to her at once’, said Rey, eager to hear the wise old woman’s thoughts on their plan.

‘No’, Beaumont cut across her sharply. ‘She left the camp this morning to hike out to the ridge where the satellite tower is. We cannot wait for her to return. There is not a moment to lose if you want to rescue your friends. I am sure that she would not object to you taking her ship if she knew of the importance of our mission’.

Rey felt a little uncertain, but then she thought of Finn, Poe and the others crammed into a First Order prison cell somewhere.

‘Alright’, she said firmly. ‘Let’s go.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Half-way through! I hope you all enjoyed this twist... 
> 
> As always, I would love to hear your reactions! :D


	15. Escape

_FINN_

Finn looked down dejectedly at the metallic black floor beneath him, its darkness shot through with reflections of the piercing white lights overhead.

He was sat in the tight space of one of the _Steadfast’s_ holding cells along with Poe, Leia, C-3PO and R2-D2. Rose, Chewie, Connix and BB8 – the only other Resistance members who had been captured alive - were, Finn presumed, in cells close by along with Zorii and Babu.

The group had been silent for a time, but now he spoke.

‘How could we have let this happen?’ he said aloud to no one in particular, his voice broken.

‘Finn’, Leia spoke softly. ‘This is not our fault.’

‘I just can’t get that image out of my head’, he continued. ‘The sight of the cannon blasts hurtling towards the city, and the explosions which followed’.

‘The First Order were clearly expecting us’, Poe tried to comfort him. ‘Nothing we could have done would have changed what happened. We were outnumbered’.

‘Indeed, Sir’, spoke up C-3PO with melancholy. ‘The likelihood of our mission succeeding under such circumstances would have been 7,896,200 to…’

‘I get it’, Finn cut across him. ‘I just don’t know what to do. I can’t see our way forward from here’.

‘Our path is always before us’, Leia said kindly. ‘Even if it is hidden from our eyes.’

When Finn looked up and met her gaze, she continued. ‘So long as we keep faith in one another, the Resistance will survive’.

Just then, there came the sound of a skirmish from outside their cell door, with blaster fire and some strangled shouts.

The prisoners stood up immediately, tensing as they faced the noise.

The next moment, the strip of lights surrounding the doorway turned from red to green, and the door shot open. Stood before them was a figure dressed in white armour.

‘Aren’t you a little short for a storm trooper?’ Leia asked, one eyebrow raised.

The figure removed its helmet and Rose’s smiling face was revealed.

‘This _is_ your cell!’, she exclaimed. ‘I was worried for a moment that I was going to have freed a banther or something.’

Just then Zorii appeared beside Rose, her pistols drawn. ‘Come on!’ she said urgently. ‘I can’t believe I’m hanging around here risking my life to save your arse, Dameron’.

The captives rushed forwards and into the corridor, where Rose passed the three humans a blaster each.

‘How did you escape?’ Finn asked as they moved quickly down the hallway, glancing backwards over their shoulders.

Before either Rose or Zorii could answer, another storm trooper appeared around a corner and hissed, ‘There you are!’

Finn began to raise his blaster, but Rose threw her arm out sideways to stop him.

‘It’s ok. She’s with us.’ she said.

The trooper ripped off her helmet, revealing big brown eyes and a mass of dark curls. ‘Hi’, she said. ‘I’m TZ-1719. You can call me Jannah’.

‘She wants to desert!’ said Rose, as they continued through the corridors of the ship. ‘She freed us!’

‘Where are the others?’ asked Leia.

‘This way!’ responded Jannah, beckoning them to follow her down a side passage just as an alarm began to blare out.

The small hallway opened out into a large, multi-ship hangar, which was currently empty except for one ship docked in the middle. The _Falcon_. It must have been towed up to the _Steadfast_ by tug-ships just after their capture. On its ramp they could just make out a small figure waving its arms up in the air.

‘Uh-hay!’ Babu called out to them.

BB-8 then appeared beside him, racing down to the bottom of the ramp while whistling loudly. The next moment the engines roared to life and the ship’s pistons began to spew out steam. Chewie and Connix must have already been inside beginning the start-up sequence.

They were so close, but not close enough.

Suddenly red bolts of blaster fire shot out across the hangar. Several squads of the First Order’s new troids had appeared at entranceways on multiple levels. At the head of one group on a raised platform stood a dark-clad brutish figure – a Knight of Ren. By the Mandalorian vibro-axe slung over his shoulder, Finn recognised him instantly as the one they called Ap’lek.

Finn and the others were forced to immediately duck behind some large pipes which wrapped around the edge of the room. They were stuck. They had to get to the _Falcon_ if they were to escape, but there was no cover to be found in the hangar’s vast open space.

‘We have to seal the doorways’, Rose said, pointing to the six entrances to the hangar in which the troids were currently stood firing out at them. ‘R2, can you jam them if you get to that port?’

R2-D2 swivelled his head to where Rose was indicating and beeped his agreement.

‘We’ll cover you!’ said Poe, and the droid set off towards the panel as blaster fire from both sides rang out all around him.

Once R2 had made it to the port and plugged one of his tool contraptions into the control socket, Finn turned to Jannah.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ he asked her.

‘I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life’, she replied. ‘But I don’t know what came over me. One moment I was on a routine patrol, and the next… Well, it wasn’t a decision, really, it was like…’.

‘An instinct’, Finn finished for her as she trailed off. ‘A feeling’.

‘A _feeling_ ’, she repeated.

‘A Force. It was the Force’, Finn said seriously. ‘The same thing happened to me.’

‘You used to be a storm trooper?’ Jannah asked, amazed.

‘I was FN-2187’, he said. ‘I betrayed them when I freed Poe, here. Now, I go by Finn’.

‘This is not the moment for life stories!’ Leia cut in, exasperated, just as R2 completed his intervention and the hangar’s door panels slammed shut.

A few troids and, unfortunately, Ap’lek, were left on the hangar side of the closed doors. The group of escapees continued to fire at them as they made a break for it towards the ship. Their blasts were joined by those of Chewie and Connix, who were now crouched on the ramp of the _Falcon_.

The remaining troids were falling one by one, but Ap’lek still stood on the platform to Finn’s right.

Suddenly they were all knocked sideways to the ground. A new ship was coming into land in the hangar, and it had a powerful downdraft. Finn saw that it was a TIE Whisper shuttle.

Wary of this new threat, he staggered to his feet, only to hear Poe cry out from his left.

Ap’lek had taken advantage of the momentary confusion by leaping down to the hangar floor and closing the space between Finn and himself.

Before Finn could do anything but look up in horror, the Knight of Ren raised his axe high over his head and then brought it slashing downwards.

But at the last moment Finn was shoved roughly to the side; Leia threw herself across to shield him, taking the fatal blow herself.


	16. A Gentle Smile

_KYLO_

Time froze.

This could not be real.

Kylo’s mind refused to accept the evidence which his eyes were showing him through the front windscreen of his ship.

Then the opposite happened. Everything seemed to speed up and operate on double time. Without really being aware of his actions, he forced open the boarding hatch, leapt down to the hangar floor and raced across to where his mother lay fatally wounded before him.

Without a moment’s hesitation or any regard for the other figures stood around, he crashed to his knees and pulled the woman he had not seen for nigh on two decades into his arms.

‘Mom’, he gasped, his voice thick.

Leia’s eyes slowly fluttered open.

‘Ben’, she said quietly, a gentle smile warming her face.

It broke him.

‘I… I’m so sorry’, he sobbed, his words by-passing conscious thought and spilling directly from his heart. ‘For everything’.

Tears were falling freely now down his cheeks.

Staring deep into his soul, she said with grace, ‘I know’.

Then Leia Skywalker Organa Solo, General of the Resistance and the last princess of Alderaan, closed her eyes for a final time, completely at peace.

Kylo howled loudly as grief took him, his wail echoing across the hangar. He wrapped his arms even more tightly around his mother and cradled her close to his chest. 

He was in agony.

But gradually he found that what he was experiencing was more than the pain of loss. It was transformative. His mother’s last two words had been a salvation. The tendrils of the Force now curling around him were not dark in tone, but light. He found that the anguish inside him was slowly burning out to be replaced with a sense of tender warmth. It felt like trying on a long-forgotten shirt or tasting an old recipe, something strange and yet familiar. It felt like coming home.

After a while, the texture of the air changed, and his mother’s weight began to lighten. He gazed down, bittersweet, as her body altered from physical mass to pure energy and all he was left holding were her empty clothes. She had become one with the Force.

He stared at the fabric in his hands for a long moment. Then, and only then, did he look up.

He was mildly surprised to find that, far from being alone, he was surrounded by a group of witnesses. Their expressions were placed somewhere between devastation, confusion and hatred.

As the shock began to recede, everyone became very still. Kylo became aware, belatedly, of Ap’lek’s body splayed out a short distance away, his blood smeared across the clothes of two people Kylo recognised - the pilot and the traitor - and one he did not; a woman with straight black hair. When he had sent the Knight to watch over Pryde, he had had no idea that he was dispatching his own mother’s executioner.

Eventually, the traitor spoke.

‘Step back, now’, he said. His tone was angry, and he had his blaster raised.

Kylo did as he was ordered and slowly rose to his feet, avoiding any sudden movements.

‘Finn, careful!’ someone whispered.

Suddenly the woman with the straight black hair rushed forwards towards him.

‘Rose, stop!’ the pilot, Poe Dameron, called out, catching and restraining her.

‘My sister’s dead because of the First Order’, she cried. ‘You can’t expect me to do nothing!’

‘Just wait’, Poe said to her, apparently wary of Kylo. He had good reason to be. The last time the two men had been in the same room Kylo had tortured him for information.

‘I’m not going to hurt you’, Kylo said, doing his best to maintain a calm and even tone.

‘Like hell you’re not’, Poe responded with venom. ‘The First Order just torpedoed hundreds of thousands of civilians on Kijimi. And I myself once watched you give the order to execute a group of defenceless villagers on Jakku. I know what you’re capable of. You deserve to be tried for war crimes.’

‘Pryde disobeyed me to fire on Kijimi’, Kylo said heavily. ‘However, the rest is true. I’ve caused a lot of harm, and I will stand and answer for every bit of it. But I swear to you that I’m no longer that person.’

The words tumbled out of Kylo’s mouth, though at their utterance he realised them to be true. Although he could never go back to being ‘Ben’, as his mother had called him, he knew that as of this moment he no longer counted himself as a Knight of Ren, either.

‘I’m not a part of the First Order anymore’, he announced. ‘I flew here because I want to help Rey. She’s all I care about, now’.

‘What are you talking about?’ the traitor, Finn, asked incredulously. ‘The last time you saw Rey, you lifted her twenty feet into the air with the Force and flung her hard into a tree’.

‘That’s not true’, Kylo replied, imploring them to understand. ‘Rey and I; we share a bond in the Force. While she was staying with Luke, we learned to communicate with one another through it. What we didn’t know at the time was that Snoke had bridged our minds in order to lure Rey to him. But we grew close. At the Battle of Crait she came to the _Supremacy_ to try to turn me to the light side, and we revolted against Snoke together’.

‘I don’t believe you’, said the one they called Rose, daggers in her eyes.

Just then Chewie, the Wookie, spoke up, angry and distrustful but nevertheless admitting that he had taken Rey to Snoke’s ship during the battle, flying her there on the _Falcon_.

‘If that’s true then why didn’t she say anything to us about this?’ Finn challenged.

‘I imagine she felt conflicted’, Kylo replied, honestly. ‘Please, we have to make contact with her now.’

‘We?’, Poe echoed. ‘There’s no ‘we’, pal’.

‘She’s in huge danger!’ Kylo said, panic rising within him. ‘I have reason to believe that the old Emperor Palpatine, otherwise known as the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, has returned. In fact, I believe that he was never really killed, but rather survived his fall on the second Death Star by leaving his body and becoming a Sith spirit. He has been possessing people ever since, using them as a shell to achieve his goals. Snoke was one such person.’

‘What?!’ several members of the group cried out at once.

‘I know it sounds crazy’, Kylo conceded. ‘But I’m certain of it. The thing is, when Rey and I killed Snoke we inadvertently forced Palpatine to relocate into another host body, and I’m pretty sure he chose Rey.’

There were no “whats” this time. All assembled were stood gaping and lost for words.

‘Look, we need to help her’, Kylo said more heatedly. ‘I know I will always be an enemy to you. But if you care about Rey, or indeed about saving the galaxy from evil, then we have to work together’.

‘Nothing you can say will make us trust you’, Finn said finally, after a pause.

Kylo thought for a long moment and then unlatched his lightsaber from his belt. He offered it to Finn.

‘Take it’, he said, placing his life in their hands.


	17. A Seat of Power

_REY_

The Ocean Moon of Endor was aptly named. Much like the planet of Ahch-To, its surface was almost entirely covered with a shallow sea. Unlike Ahch-To, however, the water here was affected by extremely strong tides. The competing pulls of Endor’s eight other moons located at such short range made the sea highly unstable.

As Rey stepped down from Maz’s ship, the _Lake Surfer_ , she felt dwarfed by the waves which rose and fell all around her. Their roar was deafening.

Beaumont had directed her to land on a large platform of twisted metal which jutted out of the ocean. It was just one part of the wreckage of a once-huge structure which now scattered the surface of this quadrant of the moon: the remains of the second Death Star. The battle station had at one time been the pride of the old Empire, but now it lay in pieces, rusting and pounded by the sea.

‘It’s a sight to behold, is it not?’ Beaumont called loudly over the noise as he stepped down from the _Lake Surfer_ behind her.

‘It’s certainly something’, replied Rey. She knew the wreckage held the key they needed to move forwards in their quest, yet the place was setting her on edge. The presence of the Force here was dark and foreboding, and she felt unsettled by its strong currents raging around her.

‘This way’, Beaumont said, stepping forwards to lead her towards a hatch in the platform a short way off. This must once have been an airlock in the outer hull of the battle station, but now it had no door. The sea spray passed through it without any barrier at all.

Rey lowered herself carefully through the hatch after Beaumont. She was used to climbing around the upturned insides of long-abandoned ships from all her years scavenging parts from Imperial Star Destroyers on Jakku. The Destroyers had been downed there during the final large-scale battle between Imperial forces and those of the New Republic. However, scaling ship walls scorched bone dry in a desert environment was very different from clambering across surfaces dripping with water.

‘Come on’, Beaumont said, a trace of impatience in his voice. ‘The wayfinder is located in a vault in the Emperor’s throne room; just a few corridors away’.

‘How do you know that?’ asked Rey, although she was only half-concentrating as most of her attention was focused on watching her footing. If Beaumont answered, she did not hear him.

They continued picking their way through the wreck’s passages, the continuous thunder of the ocean and the stench of musty air assaulting their senses.

Finally, they climbed up one last wall and emerged into a large open space. The room bore the signs of having once been richly appointed. It had large, round windows, still impressive even though their panes had long gone.

The most striking feature of the room was a wide-based chair, its black upholstery stretching upwards towards a narrow, angular top. It was unmistakably a seat of power; a throne.

Rey stared at it long and hard, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

‘The wayfinder is behind that shield door.’

She jumped slightly at the sound of Beaumont’s voice, and turned to the thick-set doorway he was indicating.

As she stepped closer to it there was a loud groaning sound and the entrance opened, its black insides gaping at them.

Beaumont stood staring into it like a man possessed. Then he walked forwards as if in a trance.

Rey hesitated for a moment, before following him.

As she crossed the threshold, the door slammed down behind her, shutting off most of the light.

Beaumont was stood in the centre of the space, his eyes fixed on a small pyramidal object which was hovering in the midst of a vertical plinth. The object’s frame was wrought from a dark mineral but each of its sides were made from a delicate sheet of glass lit from behind by a green glow. The light flickered and shifted, as if emanating from something alive.

‘Is this the wayfinder?’ she asked him, transfixed.

‘Yes’, he breathed. ‘Go ahead. Pick it up’.

Cautiously, she raised her hand and closed her fingers around the ancient casket. Before she could lift it, however, an image ripped across her mind. Suddenly, instead of seeing Beaumont and the vault, she was staring into the pale eyes of an old man, his face scarred and disfigured beneath his hood. His form was translucent with a reddish glow – no more than a ghost. Yet when his hand reached up to stroke her face she felt the coldness of his touch as strongly as if he were real. She screamed and staggered backwards, and the vision then shifted. She was confronted with a new image; one of Leia being struck down by a Knight of Ren. Pain seared through her until she felt like she was on fire. She yelled out in agony, both at the violence of Leia’s death and at the realisation of who must have commanded it.

When the vision receded, she found that she was on all fours, retching and shaking violently.

‘What is it?’ Beaumont asked, sounding frustrated.

‘I… I had a vision’, Rey stuttered. ‘Leia is dead; killed on Kylo Ren’s orders.’

He held her gaze and then said, ‘If that’s true, our mission here is even more pressing. You must take the wayfinder.’

‘There was something else, too’, panted Rey, not moving from her position on the floor. ‘I think, if we go to Exegol, the old Emperor Palpatine may return’.

Beaumont stilled for a moment, before firmly stating, ‘Palpatine is dead’.

‘I know. But I saw him. I… I can’t do this.’

‘Rey, you must’, he said heatedly. ‘Think of why we came here. Think of all the people you will save when you reach Exegol and amplify your powers to extend your influence across the galaxy’.

‘Why do you want me to go to Exegol so much?’ Rey turned on him angrily. ‘Ever since you saw my necklace, you’ve been different. What changed?’ she demanded.

Beaumont looked at her long and hard this time, before finally sighing and saying very quietly, ‘I realised, then, that I knew your parents, Rey.’

Shock ran through her.

‘Fareev and Keya. They were their names, were they not?’.

‘How could you possibly…?’

He cut across her, gesturing to her pendant. ‘Do you know what that symbol is?’

Rey shook her head, speechless.

He continued, speaking faster now. ‘It is the emblem of Naboo, worn by the planet’s monarch and her entourage. That particular necklace is unique; there is not another like it. The jade from which the sigil has been fashioned is an incredibly rare mineral. Your father, Fareev, inherited it from your grandmother, who used to be a member of Naboo’s royal court. Your mother, Keya, used to wear it.’

She stared at him, struggling to absorb his words. Back on the _Supremacy_ , Kylo had said that he had experienced a vision showing that her parents were nobodies, just junk traders who had sold her for money. How many more lies had he told her?

‘How did you know them?’ she asked.

‘Our paths crossed a long while back, but we lost touch’, he said. ‘Where are they now?’

‘They died many years ago’, she told him sorrowfully, acknowledging a fact which she now knew in her heart to be true.

‘That is sad to hear’, he said. ‘They would have been so proud of what you’re becoming. You know, it was your parents’ dream to live in a galaxy free from oppression. Just think how impressed they would be if they knew that you were going to make their dream a reality’.

Rey felt incredibly moved. She knew so little of her parents and had longed for them for so long. To hear Beaumont weaving their lives together with her own was overwhelming. Her heart felt like it was breaking and mending all at once.

‘Please, Rey’, he said finally. ‘Be brave. Go to Exegol, expand your influence in the Force and rid the galaxy of the First Order once and for all. It would be the highest possible honour to their memory’.

For a long while she said nothing while her fingers strayed to her necklace.

Then she lifted the wayfinder from its hold.


	18. Collaborating

_FINN_

Finn was experiencing a maelstrom of emotions.

First and foremost, the fresh memory of Leia’s death was reverberating around his mind. Having never known his own parents, the idea of anyone so readily giving their life for his was incomprehensible. He felt incredibly moved, but also ashamed; how could he possibly be worthy of her sacrifice?

Furthermore, he was having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that he was now collaborating with a man who was until very recently the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Kylo was currently sat awkwardly at one end of the bench in the _Falcon’s_ main living space, looking extremely uncomfortable. Everyone else was giving him a wide berth by making themselves busy in various other parts of the ship.

When Kylo had asked to work with them back on the _Steadfast_ , there had been very little time for discussion. Pryde’s troops had been on the verge of breaking through the jammed shield doors and storming the hangar once more, so they had had to evacuate fast. Finn still wasn’t sure that they’d made the right decision in allowing Kylo to come with them. But for now, short of ejecting him out of an airlock, they seemed to be stuck with him.

Once the _Falcon_ had successfully jumped to lightspeed, Poe emerged from the cockpit to join Finn where he stood in the short passageway leading into the reception area.

‘Well, I don’t think we’re being followed’, Poe said, casting a sideways glance at Kylo. ‘What now?’

‘We have to contact base’, Finn responded in a hushed voice, having reached this conclusion shortly beforehand. ‘We need to speak to Rey ourselves and find out what she thinks of all this.’

‘What if she’s possessed by Palpatine like he says, though?’

Finn sighed. ‘This is so messed up. Rey and I were sitting cracking jokes together only a few days ago. I really don’t think an evil Sith Lord would have a sense of humour, but I guess you never know’.

‘I suppose we don’t really have a choice’, Poe frowned. Then, changing tone, he added, ‘We need to tell them about Leia’s death, regardless’.

The two friends sat down at the main table in the _Falcon’s_ reception area, at the opposite end of the couch to where Kylo was. Poe pulled out his portable communicator and dialled the code that connected to Zoekta. They were both surprised when the small screen lit up to show the wizened face of Maz Kanata, Leia and Han’s old friend.

‘Maz?’ Finn said. ‘What are _you_ doing at the base?’

‘Leia sent me a message asking me to come and keep an eye on Rey’, Maz replied. ‘Thank goodness you’ve finally got in touch. I’ve been attempting to contact you for hours!’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘It’s Rey.’

‘What about her?’ asked Kylo, shifting from his position at the opposite end of the bench and barging sideways into the frame.

‘Ben Solo!’ Maz boomed, distracted. ‘How _could_ you murder your own father? You broke your mother’s heart. Where is she? Let me speak to her at once!’

‘Maz’, Poe interceded, sadly. ‘Leia is dead. We were captured by the First Order and she was killed during our escape.’

The elderly lady closed her eyes and removed her magnifying spectacles, grief plainly washing through her.

‘She was such a good woman’, she said solemnly. ‘May she rest in peace’.

‘Maz’, Kylo spoke up, tentatively. ‘I saw her. We were together at the end.’

Maz replaced her glasses so as to look at him more shrewdly. ‘You know, she never stopped loving you. Even after all the wrong you did.’

Kylo seemed not to know what to do with this information, but when he cleared his throat and spoke again, his voice was thick. ‘Maz, I’ve left the First Order. I’m giving it all up. I want to get to Rey. I’m concerned about her. I think Palpatine may have returned and that she might have been possessed by his spirit.’

Maz remained remarkably calm in the wake of this series of revelations. ‘I don’t know about Palpatine returning’, she said, steadily, ‘though there is no denying that I have sensed a shift in the Force. But I do know that no Sith spirit could stand to possess that girl for long. It would be an excruciatingly painful existence. There is too much light in her; far beyond the amount of an average being. Or, at least, there used to be’.

‘What do you mean ‘used to be’?’ Finn asked, confused.

‘That’s what I wanted to speak to you about. She’s stolen my ship!’

‘What?’ exclaimed Poe.

‘I was away from the camp making an urgent repair, and when I got back Blodoh here told me that he’d just seen her hightail it off in my ship, along with a man.’

‘What man?’ Kylo asked roughly.

‘I think Blodoh said his name was Beaumont.’

‘He’s just some technician guy that joined the Resistance a while back’, Poe explained to Kylo. ‘There’s nothing strange about him’.

‘Maybe there wasn’t once’, Kylo replied ominously. ‘Maz, did Rey say anything to this Blodoh about where they were going?’

‘That’s the most concerning bit’, she continued, sounding worried now. ‘Apparently she said they were travelling to Exegol!’

Kylo looked stunned, but Finn saw that this name clearly meant just as little to Poe as it did to him. ‘Where’s Exegol?’, he asked.

‘It’s a planet in the Unknown Regions’, grated out Kylo. ‘Few people know of it. It’s the home world of the Sith’.

Finn felt fear bloom inside him.

‘C-3PO mentioned that somewhere like that existed!’ said Poe. ‘What in hell would make Rey decide to go there?’

‘Not “what”’, said Finn, his mind racing. ‘“Who”. Maz, you said Palpatine wouldn’t be able to possess Rey for long, right?’

‘Not while the Force converging in her leans so heavily to the light side’, Maz confirmed.

‘Well, what if he moved on from her and began possessing Beaumont instead?’, Finn continued. ‘That way, he would still be able to influence her but not have to experience the pain’.

‘Why would Palpatine, or Beaumont or whoever he is, want Rey to go to Exegol, though?’ asked Poe.

‘It is rumoured’, said Kylo, ‘that while Palpatine was Emperor he began to establish a Sith army on Exegol. There has been no way to verify this, though, as the treacherous nature of the route there makes the planet almost completely inaccessible. It can only be reached through using a wayfinder, and only two of those were ever made. No one has seen either for decades.’

‘Are there any theories as to where they might be?’ Finn queried, speaking rapidly now.

‘Palpatine is said to have kept one with him’, explained Kylo. ‘If your Beaumont has been possessed by Palpatine, then he would know where that one was hidden and will probably have travelled there with Rey by now. I believe the other wayfinder was entrusted to Darth Vader, but it was lost when he died.’

‘That’s not strictly true’, Maz interjected.

The three men stared at her intently.

‘When Luke set Vader’s body on a funeral pyre, he first removed the items on his person. One was his wayfinder.’

‘How do you know that?’ asked Kylo.

‘That relates to when you burned down Luke’s training temple’, Maz went on, fixing Kylo with a piercing glare. ‘Luke was devastated and decided to turn his back on the Force forever. I tried to talk him out of it but to no avail. He sent me his collection of artefacts for safekeeping, including the Skywalker lightsaber and Vader’s wayfinder. I was shocked by the wayfinder and was not sure that Luke had realised what it was, but I could not ask him as by then he had gone into exile.’

‘What did you do with it?’ asked Finn.

‘I hid it where I thought no one would ever find it; deep beneath the sands of a forsaken desert planet named Jakku.’

‘Jakku?’ exclaimed Poe.

‘The very world that happens to be where Rey grew up, I know’, continued Maz. ‘I buried it under the wreck of a fallen AT-AT walker just outside Niima Outpost’.

‘We need to get Vader’s wayfinder to follow Rey to Exegol’, Kylo said. ‘We have to go back to Jakku’.

Finn gave him a long-suffering look. ‘Seriously?’

Maz smiled. ‘The Force has a way of tying things together’.


	19. The Missing Key

_KYLO_

‘Why can’t you just contact Rey through your Force bond thing?’ asked Rose, as the _Falcon_ entered Jakku’s lower atmosphere. The woman had been making a point of avoiding acknowledging Kylo’s existence, but her curiosity seemed to have gotten the better of her.

‘It doesn’t work like that’, Kylo responded, gritting his teeth irritably. ‘We have no control over when our bond opens. It hasn’t done since the Battle of Crait, probably because Palpatine has no need of it anymore’.

‘That’s Niima’, interrupted Finn, pointing out of the cockpit windscreen at a huddle of semi-permanent structures in the vast desert waste below.

‘That’s Rey’s town?’ asked Poe, sounding surprised.

Kylo agreed with his sentiment. It felt odd to think that someone filled with so much light could have survived here. ‘Chewie, circle the outskirts’.

Unfortunately, their aerial survey did not reveal any fallen AT-ATs.

‘It must have been buried over time by the shifting sands’, mused Finn.

‘Perhaps we should land and ask one of the locals whether they can recall its whereabouts’, Poe suggested.

‘Rrrrr-ghhh’, agreed Chewie.

‘Fine’, said Kylo, frustrated by the delay. ‘But hurry’.

Once Chewie and Poe had landed the _Falcon_ at the edge of Niima, most of the group disembarked. Kylo, Finn, Poe, Rose and C-3PO headed for the town centre. The Kijimians Zorii and Babu were refusing to go anywhere further without a stiff drink, so they went off in search of a cantina. Meanwhile, Chewie went to make arrangements for the _Falcon_ to be refuelled. Jannah and Connix, on the other hand, had elected to stay behind and mind the ship with R2-D2. BB-8 had very much wanted to come into Niima, but Finn had reminded him that the last time the pair of them had been here the droid had been recognised and almost captured, so he begrudgingly stayed on the ship too.

Niima’s alleys were mostly lined with tents, their sun-bleached canvasses ragged and threadbare. It looked like a town forgotten by the entirety of the civilized galaxy. Kylo could see why Maz had thought it would be a suitable place to hide Vader’s wayfinder.

‘Excuse me, er, Mr Plutt?’, said Poe, strolling up to the open hatch of a mechanics concession stand and glancing at its name board. ‘Do you by any chance know of an old AT-AT lying somewhere around these parts?

‘I don’t help strangers’, scowled the blubbery Crolute attendant who stood behind the counter.

‘Move aside’, Kylo said to Poe impatiently, shoving him out of the way. ‘Lead us to the walker’, he spoke firmly, forcing his will onto the shopkeeper’s mind.

Plutt’s face went blank. Then, exiting his shop through a side door, he said ‘Follow me’.

After leading the group about three sectruns north, Plutt came to a halt. ‘It’s here’, he said, pointing to a medium-sized dune.

Kylo immediately stepped forwards and, with the Force as his ally, made short work of shifting the sand. A fallen AT-AT was revealed beneath.

C-3PO marched up to the walker’s great carcass and poked his head inside its under-hatch. ‘It looks like someone used to live here’, he commented.

‘That would be a girl who used to work for me; Rey’, Plutt said, still entranced by Kylo’s body-grip.

Kylo rounded on him. ‘Rey scavenged ship parts for _you_?’

‘That’s right’, he replied. ‘I bought her off her parents when she was small. A couple of Nabooian junk traders they were, probably desperate for drinking money like all the others of their kind. Of course, the scum didn’t get to spend one penny, what with the bounty hunter showing up.’

‘What bounty hunter?’ asked Rose.

‘Ochi, I think his name was’, Plutt continued. ‘I’d sent the girl off to clean some parts when I heard blaster fire behind my shop. It looked like he’d cornered them and was trying to get some information about where something was. Anyway, they wouldn’t tell him, so he killed the woman.’

There was a sharp intake of breath from all those listening.

‘At that, the man caved and said something like “ _On Pasaana!_ ”. I guess he was talking about the location of some kind of treasure they’d stolen. Ochi seemed satisfied with that and made to cuff the man, but that didn’t work out. The Nabooian activated a thermal detonator.’

Kylo felt sickened, yet also confused. He had caught glimpses of these events in a Force vision before, but Plutt’s story didn’t make sense. Why would Rey’s father have given up the location of the treasure if he had intended to kill himself?

‘Ochi survived but looked really frustrated’, Plutt went on, unmoved. ‘And to make matters worse, his parked ship had been disabled in the firefight. He took the Nabooians’ instead. Just as he flew off, I remember the girl arriving back, screaming after it. I had to grab her by the hand to hold her back.’

‘What did you do with her parents’ bodies?’ asked Finn, after a moment.

‘We buried the woman in a pauper’s grave. What was left of the man had soaked into the sand already’, Plutt smirked, darkly.

Kylo knew that Rey had grown up missing her parents endlessly, always wondering why they had abandoned her and hoping they would come back eventually. All along, they’d been lying somewhere she had probably passed every day. ‘Why didn’t you tell Rey that her parents were dead?’ he asked angrily.

‘What would have kept her here if I had?’ Plutt replied. ‘Once she was old enough, she would have been on the first ship out of here, like all the other kids.’

Poe and Finn both looked like they could have smacked Plutt in the face, while Rose appeared to be contemplating doing something much worse. But a glance back at Rey’s dwelling re-centred Kylo. They were wasting time. Rey needed them.

‘Enough of this’, he said. ‘We have to get to Exegol’.

With that, he dismissed Plutt and turned back to the AT-AT, closing his eyes. Lifting the massive hulk would require far more focus than removing the sand that had cloaked it. He planted his feet on the ground and stretched out with his feelings. Though the land around him was barren, the Force still pervaded each grain of rock. He delved into its energy signature and was rewarded with the groaning sound of stiff metal.

Opening his eyes, Kylo rested the now-levitated walker down slightly further east of where it had sat. Exhaling, he then turned his attention to a small wooden chest which he could sense buried a way underground. With a humming sound, the sands parted and the box rose to the surface like a resurrected casket. Once it was fully exposed, Kylo grunted in satisfaction before sinking to the ground, exhausted.

Finn and Rose rushed over to the box.

‘To think, Rey was living right above it for years!’ Rose exclaimed.

The pair attempted to prise the chest open, but its’ lid would not budge.

‘Let me at it with my wrench’, Poe said, brandishing a tool which he’d retrieved from his satchel.

Still, there was no success.

‘We’re doomed!’ cried C-3PO.

Finn stared at the box, deep in thought, and then lifted his eyes to Kylo’s. ‘I think it will open for you’, he said.

Still recovering from his exertion, Kylo staggered to his feet and headed over to them. He ran his fingers over the box’s smooth varnish and pressed the latch.

To his surprise, the lid readily sprang open, revealing a small pyramidal object inside – Vader’s wayfinder.

‘How did you know it would open for me?’ he asked Finn, while lifting the artefact and examining it closely.

‘A feeling’, Finn replied.

Kylo’s instinct told him that there was more at play here, and that Finn must have some sensitivity to the Force.

‘I think it’s because you’re the grandson of Vader’, Finn continued.

Despite having had no clue on the matter only moments ago, Kylo felt certain that Finn was right. It appeared that wayfinders could only be retrieved by those who shared a genetic match with their rightful owners. Which meant that…

No.

It could not be.

But... there was no other explanation.

‘Rey is Palpatine’s granddaughter’, he whispered aloud, staggered by the weight of his realisation.

‘Ok, now you’ve really lost your mind’, reacted Poe dismissively.

‘She has to be’, Kylo said, growing more certain by the second.

‘On what grounds?’ asked Rose, gesticulating wildly.

‘There’s something that’s been bothering me’, he explained, his heart thundering. ‘If Palpatine has known where his own wayfinder is all this time, why hasn’t he just gone and got it? Well, if a DNA match is required for access, then the bodies he has been possessing wouldn’t have provided that.’

‘So, he had to find someone else who shared his DNA?’ supposed C-3PO.

‘Exactly. Someone closely related like a child or grandchild. He must have been searching for his descendants for years, offering a high reward to any bounty hunter who brought them to him’.

‘You think that Ochi was trying to take Rey and her parents to Palpatine?’ asked Rose.

‘It all fits’, Kylo nodded. ‘What if they were on the run, and the ‘treasure’ Ochi was searching for wasn’t stolen goods which Rey’s parents had left on Pasaana, but a little girl who was actually on Jakku? We’ve just heard that Rey’s dad killed himself with extreme violence once he felt certain that Ochi wouldn’t find Rey. What if he was determined not to enable his father’s return to power, and wanted to ensure that not a single atom of his body could be recovered and used to access the wayfinder?’

‘So, the fact that Palpatine has made his move to go to Exegol can only mean one thing: he’s finally found someone with a genetic match!’ concluded Finn. ‘Rey is his missing key!’


	20. A Siren Song

_REY_

The moment Rey stepped foot on Exegol’s dark, rocky surface, she knew that the planet held a concentration of the Force unlike anything she had ever experienced before. Even the power present on Ahch-To seemed paltry by comparison. The energy coursing through her now was a heady concoction that sent vibrations through to her very core.

Looking up into the deep indigo sky, she saw that the planet’s atmosphere was choked with dust particles. These, along with the arid climate, seemed to result in the frequent lightning bolts which forked back-and-forth. The noise they made was like the screeching of the iron-tipped bill of a Jakku steelpecker as it scratched across metal. The sound pierced her skull and set her on edge.

‘Do you sense the vergence?’ Beaumont asked, suddenly appearing very close at her side.

‘Yes’, she breathed.

‘It calls to you’, the man observed, still standing overly close. ‘Come, let us prepare for the ritual’.

‘Ritual?’ she echoed warily, stepping backwards from him.

‘It is the means by which you can access the power held deep in the planet’s core. Through it, you will be able to project your will across the galaxy. We must go to the Great Hall of the citadel to proceed’.

As he spoke, Beaumont pointed up at the building which he had directed her to set the _Lake Surfer_ down in front of; the only structure visible for many sectruns around. Its dark, rough-hewn walls stretched so far into the sky that Rey could barely see the top. There were no windows; just an opening slit along its base and, beyond that, only blackness.

Rey stared into the void and felt terror coursing through her. She recognised that Exegol’s unique energy was drawn from the dark side of the Force. This power was everything that Luke had told her to be wary of. She felt uncentred and unsure of herself.

Yet superseding that terror was another thought which frightened her more. The fear of failure; a dread at the thought of not going through with this and letting down Leia and her friends. She thought of her parents, imagining what they might say if they knew that she could have fulfilled the dream that they were never able to but was too weak to try. The hopes that Fareev and Keya once held, alongside those of the Resistance and of every other oppressed person in this galaxy, now resided with her.

Making her final decision, she gave Beaumont one last, stiff nod and strode forwards into the darkness.

The entranceway of the building was most strongly characterised by its low ceiling. As she led Beaumont into the structure, Rey could feel the crushing weight of thousands of tonnes of rock above their heads, held aloft by some invisible power. It was unbelievably claustrophobic, but she felt no hesitation now.

Walking on, she came to a large octagonal platform. As she and Beaumont stepped onto it, there was a deep rumble and the platform began to descend, bearing them downwards beneath the planet’s surface. Surrounding them now were gigantic monoliths of hooded men and women, their carved faces austere. Rey glanced into their unseeing eyes, defiant.

The platform settled on a lower level, which was just as deserted as the rest. Beaumont beckoned Rey towards a narrow opening in a wall to their right. Passing through it, the pair emerged into a cavernous space that she supposed must be the Great Hall.

Straight ahead of them on the far side of the room was a sight which made her stop dead. Positioned upon a dais sat an ancient seat of dark rock, looming out of the gloom. Stretching out from it were long spikes that seemed like wide, open arms, enticing her to sit upon it. They gave the impression of some spidery sea creature frozen in the act of unfurling its pincers. It made the throne on the second Death Star look like a cushy armchair, by comparison.

Shifting her gaze for a moment, Rey turned to look behind her. She saw that the room took the form of an enormous amphitheatre, with hundreds of rows of empty tiered stone benches rising upwards until they disappeared into the murk.

‘Who built this place?’ she asked Beaumont, already sensing what the answer would be.

‘Generations of the Sith order, and their followers’, Beaumont responded, not wavering as he met her stare.

‘And the body-grip meditation you taught me?’ she asked, after a pause.

‘It draws on the dark side of the Force’.

Rey took in a deep breath, before exhaling slowly.

‘As I showed you in your training, the abilities of the Jedi are limited’, continued Beaumont, fervently. ‘The kind of influence you need for your plan can only be achieved through sitting on this throne. In doing so, your mind will be united with the planet and your body will flood with the energy it holds.’

Rey turned her gaze back to the ancient Sith chair and heard it call to her. It was a siren song which spoke of valour and fearlessness; of the tearing down of old worlds and the rising of a new age. Exhilaration thrummed through her veins. There was no question of the right thing to do. In taking this seat she would free countless multitudes of people and deliver the galaxy from the clutches of the First Order once and for all.

Yet before she could take another step, they were suddenly joined by a man who ran pell-mell into the Hall from an entrance on the opposite side. Barely recognisable, especially without his cloak and mask, he skidded to a halt in front of the throne and blocked her path.


	21. Allegiance

_FINN_

Who was this woman?

That was Finn’s first thought as he pounded into the Great Hall of the Sith citadel on Exegol, shortly behind Kylo, and stared at the person he thought he had come to save.

She had Rey’s hair, Rey’s robes and Rey’s stature, but she was nothing like the girl he had gotten to know so well.

Her stance was rigid, predatory even, and her face wore a frenzied expression. What was more, there was something in her aura that rippled dangerously across the thirty feet or so between them.

‘Rey?’ Finn gulped. ‘I…’

‘What are you doing here with _him_?’ she called harshly, a mixture of pain and disbelief in her eyes as she stared at where Finn stood with Kylo and also Rose, Chewie and Poe, who had accompanied them from the _Falcon_.

‘We… well… he’s changed’, Finn stuttered. ‘He’s working with us now. He said…’

‘Stop!’ she replied, cutting across him with a sharp sting of betrayal in her voice. ‘I can’t believe you’ve sided with him’.

‘It’s not like that’, Rose implored. ‘We’re here to help. We’re concerned about you.’

‘I don’t need help’, Rey shot back in a confused tone, shaking her head. ‘There’s nothing wrong! Not with me, at least’.

‘Ruhhhhhhh’, moaned Chewie.

‘Rey, this is the throne of the Sith!’ Poe spoke slowly, attempting to reason with her. ‘What are you _thinking_?’

‘I am here to align myself fully with the vergence of the planet’, said Rey, passionately. ‘Through it, I will wield a power great enough to bend the will of all beings to my own. At my behest, all peoples will rise up against the First Order’s troops and our enemy will be ended!’

‘No! You have to listen’, Finn beseeched her, disturbed by her words. He pointed at Beaumont, who was stood quietly behind Rey. ‘That man is not who he says he is. His body is nothing but a shell possessed by the ghost of the old Emperor Palpatine. The Emperor survived Vader’s attack on him by cheating death to become a Sith Spirit.’

Rey stared at him for a moment, and Finn felt like the future of the entire galaxy was balanced precariously on a cliff edge. Then, she tilted her head back and laughed. It was not a happy, carefree laugh; her voice was high above its usual pitch. The sound was hollow and unpleasant.

‘It’s true!’ Finn continued, now certain of the peril that his friend was in. ‘He’s manipulated you just like he did to Kylo in the guise of Snoke. As soon as you take the throne and complete your realignment, you’ll have enough dark energy in you for him to shift to possessing _you_ as a permanent host. He will be able to merge your power with his knowledge to bring the galaxy under the shadow of Sith rule once more!’

‘Pay him no heed, Rey. He’s just trying to distract you’, hissed Beaumont audibly in her ear. ‘You know you can trust me.’

The whispers travelled on the dry air and rang in Finn’s ears.

‘Stop!’ exploded Kylo next to him, breaking his frozen silence.

Finn saw that Kylo was shaking all over, though whether this was from anger or hurt, or perhaps even fear, he was not sure.

‘Rey, end this madness’, Kylo shouted across the gap between them. ‘You _must_ believe us!’

‘I did once’, Rey snarled at him menacingly. ‘But I was weak back then. I am much stronger now. I _will_ save the galaxy’.

‘Not like this’, Kylo bellowed back at her. ‘Whatever this man has told you, it isn’t true. Even if you utilised the nexus of the planet, the extent of your power would never reach beyond this quadrant of Exegol, let alone the galaxy!’

‘Lies’, she roared, the waves of darkness rolling off her intensifying.

‘I never lied to you’, Kylo yelled in reply, this brutal honesty seeming to take some of the wind out of him.

‘I don’t believe you’, she said, simply. ‘Now, you four come over here.’ At this she gestured to Finn, Rose, Chewie and Poe.

Finn gaped at her but did not move. Neither did the others.

‘Rey’, he said eventually. ‘We can’t let you do this’.

His friend met his gaze with a long, steely look. When she opened her mouth again, her cold, detached tone told Finn that something between them had changed forever.

‘Then move aside. If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy’, she grated out. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, but if you try to stop me, I will cut you from my path.’

At this she drew the Skywalker lightsaber from her belt and ignited it, its blue blade buzzing threateningly.

Finn felt something break inside him.

‘Rey’, he pleaded desperately. ‘Please…’

She ignored him. Stepping forwards, she began her advance.

Suddenly the ground in front of her was hit by a blast. Chewie had sent a warning shot from his bowcaster.

Rey looked up at the Wookie, enraged, before crying out at Kylo. ‘You’ve turned them against me!’

‘You have done that yourself!’ Kylo responded, heatedly. With a grim look on his face, he then proceeded to stretch out his right hand towards the blue saber. In an instant, the blade’s light shut off and the hilt came catapulting across the space between them. Kylo caught it firmly, its allegiance now with him.

Surprised and furious, Rey responded in kind. She reached her own arm out and summoned Kylo’s saber to her. Finn felt it shake in its position attached to the outer strap of his bag. He tried to hold onto it tightly, but it was no good. The weapon broke free of its fastenings and was propelled into Rey’s waiting hand. She immediately pressed the activation switch on the crossguard hilt and lit the saber’s three blades: one primary and two quillons. As she charged towards them, their fractious light lit her face a crimson red.


	22. Disarmed

_KYLO_

It was like a dream. Here was the woman he had searched after for months, running straight towards him.

But if it was a dream, then it was a nightmare. It was a twisted version of reality that he had once foreseen and thirsted for, yet now abhorred.

It was like looking into a mirror to see himself as he would have appeared a year ago; a single-minded crusader consumed with righteous fury. An apprentice in the dark side of the Force.

When he had first set eyes upon Rey in the Great Hall, and heard her words, he had been flooded with anger. But now that emotion was gone. In its place was abject terror. He did not want to fight her. He could not bear to think of harming her now. But she was leaving him no choice.

As she reached him and brought the red saber sweeping down towards his face, he raised the Skywalker saber up to meet it in defence.

The blades crashed and hissed, their beams emitting a piercing screech as they slid against one another.

She broke their stance and struck out once more, this time from her left. Kylo exhaled sharply as the weapon sliced within inches of his skin.

Baring her teeth, she reformed her movements and lashed out again and again, each time from a new angle. Red and blue sparks flew, their glows dancing and melding together to create a lightshow of purple against the dark benches of the amphitheatre. With every strike Kylo caught Rey’s blade, although her speed and agility were proving a huge challenge.

It was a shock to experience his own saber used against him. The many hours he had spent painstakingly assembling it to the highest specification now seemed like an exceedingly poor use of his time.

But matching that was the pleasant surprise of how easily the Skywalker blade yielded to his touch. His ancestral weapon may not have been crafted to his own design, but in its hilt he felt the strength of his forebears. Even following the splitting of its kyber crystal, the saber vibrated with a powerful resonance.

The others stood, helpless, to one side. The pair of Force-wielders were parrying at such speed that any attempt by the bystanders to intervene would be futile. Nonetheless, Kylo could see that Rose was trying to edge round behind Rey in order to get to Beaumont, or Palpatine, as Kylo supposed he should call the man. She moved slowly; almost imperceivably so. She had almost made it, unnoticed by either Rey or Palpatine, the latter of whom’s eyes were fixed on the duel. But in the nick of time Rey sensed the threat.

Infuriated, Rey cast her free hand out to the side. At her wordless command, an invisible Force-barrier was erected around Palpatine and Rose was blasted backwards off her feet by the waves of energy it exuded.

Kylo took advantage of the moment’s distraction to gasp oxygen into his lungs, but all too soon Rey was back to attacking him, repeatedly slashing the red saber across the narrow space between them. Kylo ducked and swooped to avoid each blow, but he was tiring, and his movements were becoming less controlled.

Suddenly, the walls of the great chamber rumbled and shuddered, as though shaken by a tectonic quake. The group staggered and swayed, before pausing in a moment’s stillness.

Then Poe’s communication device blurted to life. ‘Poe, Star Destroyers have just started to emerge from the planet’s surface and rise into the atmosphere!’ a voice on the other end was saying. ‘They must have been hidden in underground shipyards! There are scores of them!’

Palpatine smiled, as if this was another part of his plan coming together.

‘Go!’ Kylo yelled frantically at Poe and the others. ‘You have to hold them here!’

Rey instantly threw her hand out to stop them, but Kylo produced a shield of his own, enabling their escape. Finn hesitated, looking loathe to abandon his friend, but Chewie grabbed him and half-dragged him through the exit.

Now it was just Rey, Palpatine and himself who remained in the Great Hall.

Rey, seemingly unnerved by this development, resumed her onslaught of blows, increasingly urgent now in her attempts to move past him. She made to jump over him, spinning through the air as she performed a backwards somersault. However, Kylo managed to intercept her once again.

‘I _will_ stop the First Order’, she said, a fevered determination across her brow.

‘If you take that throne you will herald something far worse in its place’, he replied, frantically blocking each of her steps. ‘The weight of the First Order now pressing down upon the galaxy is nothing in comparison to that which would be brought by a new Sith empire. It’s but a weak shadow on a cloudy day, while the darkness cast by the Sith would be the deepest black of a dread cave on Eutine.’

‘I would not let that happen! I would rule for good’, she roared at him.

‘You would not rule at all’, he bellowed back in anguish. ‘Palpatine will possess you from the moment he is able to.’

The man in question was holding his silence, skulking in the gloom a short way away as he watched their exchange beadily. Kylo knew that, without the body of a Force-wielder, Palpatine was powerless to intervene. Yet it mattered not: his work was already done. Rey’s will was bent to his.

‘How can you expect me to believe you?’ Rey challenged Kylo. ‘I trusted you once. I thought we would end this conflict together! I hate myself every day for how wrong I was’.

‘I wanted to’, he panted. ‘I still want to! Everything I have done over these past few months has been in an effort to get back to you’.

At this admission, she stilled. For a moment, they stayed staring at one another, breathing heavily, and Kylo dared hope that he had persuaded her. He waited anxiously for her reply.

Eventually, a gentle half-smile warmed her face. ‘It’s too late’, she whispered sadly.

With that, she brought the red saber up a final time and disarmed him. As he lost his balance and fell hard to the floor, she extinguished the weapon and sprinted unimpeded to the throne.


	23. Dynasty

_REY_

Rey was climbing the last step of the Sith throne when a strangled cry made her pause. Turning around, she saw that, rather than trying to follow her, Kylo had run back in the opposite direction and grabbed hold of Beaumont instead.

‘No, stop! I’m innocent!’ her mentor was snivelling pitifully into Kylo’s chokehold.

‘You old fool’, Kylo replied. ‘The oppression of the Sith will never return. Your plot to regain control of the galaxy is over... you have lost…’.

Beaumont caught Rey’s gaze and called out, ‘Help me! Don't let him kill me. I can't hold on any longer. Ahhh!’

With that, the man descended into feeble cries.

‘Be silent’, Kylo yelled at him angrily. ‘I won’t kill this man you’ve taken possession of. I know that won’t be enough to destroy you’.

Before Rey could act, she suddenly sensed a new presence approaching. Then there was movement at the edges of her vision as dark figures began entering the Great Hall, spilling in from the four entranceways. They moved purposefully, as though summoned here by command. Although their faces were obscured by large hoods, Rey could tell that they were bristling with anticipation and excitement. From their hidden mouths came a low hymn; its deep tones reverberating around the stone walls.

Rey’s instincts told her who these people were: Exegol’s Sith cultists here to witness the ascension of their new master. They had no ability to wield the Force themselves but had dedicated their lives to following the Sith order.

More and more came, filing up into the rows of benches when the lowest level of the amphitheatre became full. All the while they continued their sinister melody.

Upon the cultists’ arrival Kylo had instantly unwrapped one of his arms from restraining Beaumont and had taken up the Skywalker saber again. He now pointed the blade out wide, turning around in a circle to ward off the newcomers from approaching him and his captive any closer.

But the loyalists were undeterred. Those nearest to Kylo drew their own weapons; dark metallic swords, spears and maces. They packed together tightly forming a closer and closer ring around the two men. Kylo lashed out and began to fend them off, but he was handicapped by his determination to continue to restrain Beaumont. Although several cultists fell at the strike of the luminous blue blade, their massive numbers meant that soon Kylo was overpowered.

Rey watched as he was bound, gagged and pushed roughly to the ground. Then, as one, all those gathered suddenly ended their hymn and turned to face her.

Her breathing quickened in the ringing silence.

‘The Sith navy is at your disposal!’ Beaumont called up to her, now gesturing freely around the Hall, which had reached full capacity. His voice sounded much stronger again now that Kylo was no longer restraining him, and it echoed loudly. ‘Rey, in the name of Fareev and Keya, take the throne and fulfil your destiny!’

Rey looked slowly from Beaumont to Kylo and then back to the throne. She thought of her mother and father, and a new memory came to her from the deepest recesses of her mind.

She was on Jakku, with her mother’s arms wrapped tightly around her. ‘You have to stay with this man’, Keya was telling her, hurriedly. ‘You will be safe here’.

Her father came over and joined their embrace. ‘We’ll come back for you, sweetheart, I promise’.

As Rey replayed this precious moment in her mind, a tear slid out from the corner of her eye and something shifted within her.

She stepped down from the dais and started walking steadily back towards where Beaumont stood over Kylo. The Sith loyalists parted for her, but also began muttering amongst themselves. Their whispers travelled outwards through the crowd, turning it into a great hissing sea. Rey ignored them.

‘You know’, she said softly upon reaching Beaumont. ‘You never did tell me how you knew my parents’. Although quiet, her tone exuded menace. She raised Kylo’s lightsaber, ignited its red blade and held it to Beaumont’s throat.

Beaumont stared at the red plasma, unwavering, before closing his eyes. Then, without warning, his outline started to blur, and his form began to split into two. Stepping out from his physical body was the blood-red ghost of an old man, his face deeply lined and his form frail beneath his long dark robes. He was the same person Rey had seen in her vision on Kef Bir. _Palpatine_.

Rey could do no more than stand, transfixed in horror, as Beaumont’s body slumped to the floor. Palpatine’s blank eyes shone like twin moons, staring at her before narrowing in irritation. When he spoke, it was with a gravelly tone steeped in displeasure. ‘Fareev was my son. He was weak, turning his back on power. But you! The Force is so strong with you! I had hoped you would be the one to take our dynasty forwards. You disappoint me, _granddaughter’_.

Before Rey had time to even begin to process his words, she found herself being grabbed by several pairs of hands as the surrounding loyalists stepped forwards and dragged her to the ground beside Kylo, who was writhing ferociously in his bindings. Meanwhile, the semi-conscious Beaumont was pulled backwards through the crowd and out of view. She tried to resist the cultists’ grip, but found her powers suppressed by the shock filling her body like a vacuum. She felt weak; barely able to breathe.

‘No’, she cried out. ‘No, that’s… that’s not possible. No, no, no!’ Her words dissolved into a howl of pain. Her anguish partly arose from the realisation that she had been deceived. But far worse was the fact that, almost as long as she could remember, she had desperately longed for her family. Now, here she was united with her grandfather, and it was the worst feeling she had ever known.

‘Bind her’, Palpatine commanded his servants coldly, and Rey experienced yet further constriction as cords were brought forth and wrapped around her. She struggled, but it was no use. She was left lying on her front, gagged and unable to move. All she could do was strain her neck upwards to look at Palpatine.

He was now staring down at Kylo.

‘Once it was _you_ that I sought to possess’, Palpatine growled. ‘No longer holding any hope of finding my own flesh and blood, I decided that you were the next-best alternative as a successor host for my spirit. I saw the potential of your blood line. What’s more, I knew I could use you to access Vader’s wayfinder if I ever managed to track Luke Skywalker down and learn its whereabouts from him. In the guise of Snoke, I laid the path to the dark side before your feet. And you were only too eager to take it. You were so _easy_ to manipulate.’

Kylo yelled out and struggled next to her, his muted cries barely distinguishable from the whispers of the Sith cultists, which had grown louder as they now beared down upon them.

‘But I could only take you so far’, Palpatine continued. ‘There was a stubborn shard of light within your heart that I could not eradicate. When you killed your father, I had hoped that the act would banish it once and for all. But I was wrong; it grew instead, destroying your resolve. I decided, then, to shift my hopes onto this intriguing scavenger girl whom you had stumbled across.’

At this, Palpatine shifted his eyes from Kylo and looked down at Rey instead. She met his gaze unflinchingly, hatred rising within her.

‘You had shown strength in defeating him on Starkiller Base’, he told her. ‘So, I tried bridging your minds to tempt you to come to us. And you did, so _willingly_.’

Now he smiled at her. It was almost loving.

‘But when we met my hopes were dashed. There was so much light in you that I thought you would never be a suitable host’, he continued in a tone of frustration. ‘Yet when Kylo suddenly destroyed Snoke’s body, I was forced to remove myself from him and possess you instead. It was an agonising existence, but I saw something then that I had not seen before. There was a shadow across your soul; a tiny hint of darkness. I could not bear to possess you for long and quickly moved on to controlling a Resistance bystander instead. But what I’d experienced made me reconsider you’.

At this, Palpatine bent downwards towards her and reached out a crimson hand to brush her cheek.

The ice that spread through her veins from the contact was like nothing Rey had ever experienced before. Even her premonition of this moment had felt like a warm summer’s day by comparison.

‘When I saw your jade necklace that morning on Zoekta, everything changed’, he went on, straightening up again. ‘I recognised, beyond all shadow of a doubt, that you were Fareev’s child. From that moment, I knew I had what I needed to get back to my devoted followers on Exegol, and I also saw my path for the future. As a descendant of mine, I realised you had the potential to be a true Sith. If I trained you carefully, you would make an excellent host.’

Here, he paused, and his expression grew cold again.

‘Yet here we are. You have proven a disappointment, just like young Solo. And you have chosen to reject the power within your grasp, just as your father did.’

At this, Rey felt herself being pulled upwards again by cultists and held upright in a standing position. Her gag was ripped off and her screams were allowed to escape.

‘I have been patient for long enough’, Palpatine announced as he stepped towards her. ‘If you will not take the throne willingly, then I will bear the pain and walk you there myself’.

She caught a final glimpse of his disfigured face growing larger as he closed the gap between them, and then her consciousness went blank.


	24. Palpatine's Orders

_FINN_

Leaving Rey behind in the Great Hall of the Sith had been one of the hardest things Finn had ever had to do. He knew that his friend had changed – perhaps forever - but leaving her still felt like an act of betrayal.

However, on reaching the planet’s surface again those feelings of horror were compounded ten times over by the sight before him. The sky above was filled with more Xyston-class Star Destroyers than Finn could possibly hope to count. Lightning forked between them, its flashes illuminating their pointed hulls and the gigantic cannons attached to their undersides.

Connix, Jannah, Zorii and Babu had left the _Falcon_ along with the three droids and now stood with Rose, Poe, Chewie and himself huddled at the entrance to the Sith structure, gazing out in trepidation at the scene before them.

‘Where did these come from?’ Poe exclaimed.

C-3PO spoke. ‘It is theorised that the Sith planet of legend was populated by Sith followers and cultists who awaited the day of the return of their masters’ order’, he said. ‘Perhaps they have been here building this fleet on Palpatine’s orders ever since the days of the Empire’.

‘What are they all waiting for?’ Rose questioned, nervously, as the ships hovered ominously in a stationary position in the atmosphere.

BB-8 rocked from side to side and whistled as if to echo her anxiety.

‘Their master’s command’, guessed Jannah, grimly. ‘If Palpatine manages to gain possession of the body of a Force-user and retake the throne, with this navy he’d be unstoppable. He’d be able to establish a new Sith Empire throughout the galaxy.’

Just when Finn thought things couldn’t get any worse, he was proved wrong.

Suddenly, the dark shapes of several huge First Order battlecruisers appeared high above, growing larger as they descended through the mesosphere.

‘Ruuugghghhh’, groaned Chewie.

‘It looks like Kylo’s suspicions were correct’, grimaced Connix. ‘Pryde seems to be submitting to Palpatine’s command, and it looks like he’s convinced the vast majority of First Order generals to follow him. Pretty much their entire fleet is here!’

‘I bet that wretch Hux is up there’, Rose added. ‘And probably the other Knights of Ren, too. Palpatine must have called them all to amass on Exegol along with the Sith navy. Presumably he sent out course-marker signals from his wayfinder as he and Rey travelled here.’

Lightning continued to fork through the sky, its shrill noise making Finn wince.

‘What are we going to do?’ hissed Zorii. ‘Even if we tried to hit just one of the ships with the _Falcon’s_ quad lasers, we would instantly get blown out of the sky in a single blast from them.’

Finn felt numb with despair. The situation was vaguely akin to when he and the rest of the Resistance had been cornered in the old mine on Crait, staring down the assembled might of the First Order. But back then he had been convinced that help would come, if only they could hold off the Order’s troops for long enough. As he had piloted his ski speeder straight towards the Order’s battering ram cannon, he had felt sure that the Resistance would survive, and that all-consuming goal had filled him with the strength to do whatever it took to keep their hope alive.

But things were different now. They were millions of miles off the edge of the map, in a galaxy rapidly falling to the Order’s ravenous expansion and now imperilled further by the rise of the Sith. Finn knew in his heart that no help was going to come this time.

‘There is nothing we can do’, he stated bleakly.

‘Oh, no you don’t!’ Poe responded, a fierce look in his eyes. ‘What happened to following Luke’s example? “All it takes is one person with guts and conviction”, remember?’

‘But, Poe…’

‘No “but”s!’ his friend exclaimed. ‘People are counting on us. The _galaxy_ is counting on us! Even if Kylo is unsuccessful down below, we have to make as big a dent in this fleet as we can. Just that could save whole populations of people’.

Hearing the same words Han Solo had once said to him accosting his ears again made Finn pause. He looked from the ship-filled sky back down to the faces of his friends. He thought of Leia, and the way she had given her life for his. He recognised that, ultimately, they had come too far to give up now.

There was something else as well. In his quietened mind, he could sense the will of the Force appealing to him. With each day that passed, he felt himself becoming more and more affected by it, and now it was entreating him to make one last stand.

Slowly, he nodded his head.

‘Alright’, he said, speaking quietly but resolutely. ‘Let’s find a way to fight. It’s true that the fleet is vulnerable here what with so many ships being concentrated in one place’.

‘We don’t have anywhere near enough fire power to launch a direct attack’, reasoned Jannah. ‘And as the ships have been constructed in isolation, I doubt they’ll be using software we’d be familiar enough with to hack’.

‘Maybe we need to think more basic than that’, considered Poe. ‘Is there any way we could cut their engines and cause them to drop back to the ground? The impact would set off huge explosions in their fuel reserves’.

‘Ship go bang! Bang, bang!’ contributed Babu.

R2-D2 emitted a series of enthusiastic squeals.

‘We would need something like an electro-magnetic pulse’, pondered Zorii. ‘That would pass as a wave through the fleet, burning out all the ships’ circuits’.

‘If I may interject’, postulated C-3PO. ‘It is possible that such a pulse could be generated by harnessing the power of the lightning strikes. We would need to set up a converter, of course, but the planet’s unusually strong magnetic fields would increase the magnitude of the pulse around a thousand-fold. However, the chances of such a plan working are 918,720 to 1’.

There was a pause as all gathered stared at the golden-bodied droid.

‘Anybody got a different plan offering better odds than that?’ asked Poe, glancing around with one eyebrow raised. ‘No? Well then, I say we give it a shot!’

‘There’s a portable alternator on the _Falcon’_ , said Rose. ‘If I can reverse its polarity and rewire its rectifier, we should be able to use it to warp the electromagnetic field of the lightning charges and convert it into a single pulse.’

‘Get on it!’ said Finn, prompting Rose to break cover and dash out towards the _Falcon_. Connix went with her.

‘For this to be really effective, we need some way of capturing the energy of multiple lightning strikes at once’, said Zorii. ‘We should create a hotspot which will draw down a significant amount of ionising energy in one go. What kit have you got in the way of something we could use as a finial rod?’

The expressions on everyone’s faces faltered as their racing thought train came to a shuddering halt.

‘I guess the _Falcon’s_ fresher pipes are made from a copper alloy’, mused Finn slowly. ‘We could use one of those?’

‘Yes!’ said Poe, buoyed up again. ‘And there’s sectruns’ worth of cabling in the _Falcon’s_ lower engine compartment which we could pull out and use to divert the electrical energy from the rod and conduct it to the alternator’.

‘Wuhurruhhh?!’ yelled Chewie indignantly.

‘I know, I know’, replied Poe hurriedly. ‘But if this plan is going to succeed, I don’t think we have another choice’.

Chewie looked deeply disgruntled, but eventually nodded his assent.

‘We should put the lightning rod at the highest earthed point’, said Jannah. ‘Like the top of this building, for instance’.

‘What about the alternator?’ said Zorii. ‘Where should that be positioned?’

‘The alternator needs to be as high up in the atmosphere as possible’, said C-3PO. ‘The higher its altitude, the greater the range of the pulse it will generate’.

‘I’ll take it up’, said Poe, without hesitation. ‘I can go up in Maz’s ship’.

‘Poe, stop. No. It’s too dangerous! You’d get fried!’ said Finn, deeply concerned.

‘What choice do we have?’ Poe retorted, his voice strained but resolute. ‘There’s a high chance that this plan won’t work, but if it does it has the potential to knock out both the Sith fleet and the First Order’s command ships. What’s one person’s life against those of the millions we’d protect?’

After a moment, Finn quietly replied, ‘It depends on the person’.

‘Finn’, said Poe gently, placing his hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘I’m going to do this.’

The two looked into one another’s eyes for a long moment.

‘I’ll go with you’, Finn said, his voice breaking and eyes watering.

‘What good would that do?’ replied Poe, attempting to laugh but not quite managing it. ‘No, you should stay on the ground and make sure that the rod’s connected properly’.

Finn glanced down at his feet, no longer able to meet his friend’s gaze. ‘Alright’, he said. Then, lifting his eyes and looking around at the assembled group, he added, ‘Let’s do this’.


	25. Darth Halb

_KYLO_

The pain was unbearable.

Watching, impotent, as Rey succumbed to Palpatine’s spirit made Kylo feel worse than he ever had while tortured by Snoke.

For a moment, her body shuddered, and her face became screwed up in pain. Kylo thought that Palpatine must be experiencing the agony of occupying her.

Then the loyalist attendants removed Rey’s bindings and her legs were made to stagger back towards the dais.

The cultists clutching Kylo dragged him to his feet, forcing him to look on as she climbed the steps and finally took the throne.

All at once, a deafening roar emerged from the rock itself. Rey’s head was thrown backwards, and her body was shaken violently as the energy of the vergence began to course through her. Her Force signature was set aflame with a dark fire, and dark power surged outwards from her across the Hall.

It lasted no longer than a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity.

Just as quickly as the sound had started, it stopped, and Rey’s head was tilted forwards, her hands resting on the arms of the seat. Then her eyes flashed open, revealing burning yellow irises in place of her usual hazel ones. They stared out across the crowd, alive and yet dead at the same time.

The Sith cultists filling the hall seemed mesmerised. For an instant, they did not move or speak. Then one near the throne began to call out a deep mantra, repeating three monosyllabic words over and over again.

The adulation spread around the room, and soon the Hall was full of devotional chanting.

‘Kneel before your Empress!’, a forceful cry came from Rey’s mouth. Though the words were spoken with Rey’s tongue, Kylo knew that they were not her own.

At her command, the Sith cultists bowed, as one, before her.

‘From hence forth, I shall be known as Darth _Halb_ ’, she pronounced loudly, pausing for emphasis on the final syllable.

More reverent chanting followed.

Kylo had had enough. No longer held firmly by his now-distracted captors, he focused his mind and used the Force to gently prise apart his ties. Then he grabbed the hilt of the Skywalker saber from the hand of the cultist who had seized it from him and pushed his way through to the front of the crowd.

As he broke through the front line, those yellow eyes now set in Rey’s face glared down upon him.

‘Have you come to claim her, Solo? She’s mine, now!’

At this, Rey’s arms were lifted from their rests and her hands were pointed towards him. Then Force-lightning shot out of the end of them, penetrating his body.

He collapsed instantly, his every nerve ending on fire. Yet, curiously, he found that he was not totally debilitated. A part of his mind was able to reflect that this wasn’t so bad, really, in comparison to the agony of watching Rey be corrupted by a Sith lord.

Through gritted teeth, he turned his head up to the throne and rasped out a response.

‘She is stronger than either of us. She will submit to no-one’.

Rey’s consciousness was in there; he _had_ to reach her.

He started to crawl up towards the throne, one step at a time. He was dimly aware of one or two of the cultists starting forwards from the watching crowd to try to stop him, but Rey’s arm lifted to signal that they desist.

Instead, the intensity of the Force-lightning raining down upon him was increased.

Kylo now shook and thrashed out where he lay spread-eagled across the throne’s steps. His mind became blank, unable to form any coherent thought save for one word. _Rey_.

With his entire purpose concentrated into just one desire, he heaved himself up the last step to the throne and threw his hands up to grab both of Rey’s in his.

Her yellow eyes reacted with shock, and also panic. For at Kylo’s touch he could sense something shifting inside her. It was unlike anything he had ever known before. Her Force signature was oscillating rapidly back and forth, flashing dark and light in equal bursts that thrummed with energy.

Rey was fighting for control of her own body once more.

As the oscillations became more irregular, Kylo noticed the yellow of her eyes darkening, and finally a piercing scream escaped from her mouth.

In the next moment there was a flash and then an enormous boom as a shockwave of energy radiated out from Rey’s body, just as she collapsed into his arms, holding him close.

All around, the cultists were knocked down, flattened by the strength of the Force-wave. Following this was a moaning sound and then the Hall itself began to disintegrate. Tons of dark rock came crashing down, with hulks of stone the size of AT-AT’s falling from the walls and ceiling. The air was rent with the shrieks of the loyalists as the ancient Sith structure which they had tended to so devotedly became their tomb.

Wrapped tightly in Rey’s arms, sure that any second would be his last, Kylo squinted his eyes open just wide enough to see even the throne itself crumbling, its spidery arms fragmenting into powdered dust.


	26. A Chosen One

_REY_

As the deafening sounds assaulting her gradually quietened, Rey kept her eyes squeezed firmly shut. She felt sure that if she opened them, she would find that the world had ended.

After what seemed like an age, her panic slowly subsided and she decided to concentrate on her breath. In came the inflow through her nose; out went her exhalation through her parted mouth. The air was full of dust and the stench of death, but the meditation grounded her, nonetheless. She felt wisps of the Force caress her, and she gathered the strength to extend her awareness just a little wider.

There was a second breath.

It was nearby.

There was a being in her arms, someone warm holding her close. Their chest was expanding and contracting rhythmically in time with the gases entering and exiting their lungs.

Gradually, she loosened her grip and allowed her eyes to drift open.

_Kylo_.

The man she had once hated more than any one and yet longed for like no other blinked and peered up at her, his deep brown eyes filled with something like wonder.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she leaned in towards him.

Closing her eyes again, she brushed her lips gently against his.

Moments passed, and she thought of nothing but the burning sensation of belonging that was spreading through her. She felt her heart opening like the tender shoot of a jya plant unfurling in a rare Jakku rainstorm, quenching a thirst so great that it almost did not recognise the droplets which fell. It was ecstasy.

Eventually, she broke the connection and leaned back, opening her eyes to look upon the face she knew so well.

Except that she did not find it.

Instead, she found a man with floppy hair and the warmest of smiles spreading between his ears.

Unable to resist, she tilted her forehead in to touch his, leaving a mere inch between their mouths.

‘Palpatine?’ she asked, tentatively.

‘He’s gone’, he replied, breathily.

At this, she let out a gush of air and knelt back, properly taking in their surroundings.

They were situated at the very centre of a blast radius which encompassed the whole of the Great Hall. In every direction lay total devastation.

‘What happened?’ she asked, her gaze drifting across the fallen debris.

‘A Sith spirit survives through being latched onto another living being like a parasite’, Kylo told her steadily. ‘When that attachment to life is completely severed, the spirit is exorcised and destroyed.’

‘I remember forcing him out’, she recalled, scrunching up her eyes and replaying the moment in her mind as she crossed her legs beneath her. ‘It was like fighting to wake up.’

‘You were so strong’, he responded, matching her position. He spoke in a tone weighted with awe. ‘You exerted your will over his’.

At this she returned her eyes to his face. ‘I don’t understand, though’, she frowned. ‘I still sat on the Sith throne and absorbed the power of the vergence. Where has all that dark energy gone? Why am I not setting out to destroy the galaxy, right now?’

‘It is still inside of you’, he replied, seriously. ‘But it is balanced by the extraordinary amount of light energy which also resides within your heart. I believe that your years of surviving in the desert, repeatedly choosing hope in the face of overwhelming hardship, fed the light side within you far beyond what would be expected in the average person. That light is counteracting Exegol’s darkness. In any case, the dark side of the Force is not inherently evil. It is the choice of the user how to wield that power.’

‘But what about the Jedi and the Sith?’, asked Rey, confused. ‘The good side fighting the bad?’

‘Neither order have been correct in their view’, Kylo responded. ‘The Jedi sought to suppress desire and emotion, while the Sith attempted to expel all feelings of empathy and compassion. Both are extremes, untenable to anyone in their natural way of being.’

He hesitated here, taking in a deep breath and looking her straight in the eye, before continuing. ‘I used to want to follow the path to the dark side that my grandfather started down, seeking to become the most powerful Sith ever to have lived. But then I met you, and I began to question my convictions. The more I learned about the Force, the more I realised that both the light side and the dark side are fundamental elements of the universe. Think about it this way; how do we know that the light is light and that the dark is dark?’

Rey considered. After a pause, she answered softly, ‘We know because both reside within each of us. We recognise them because we possess an understanding of them equally. We distinguish light through a lack of darkness, and darkness through an absence of light.’

‘Exactly!’ he replied emphatically. ‘Both are inherent to our being. If a person, or indeed a world, leans too far to one side or the other, then they are not truly at peace. I told you on the _Supremacy_ that I wanted us to end the Sith and the Jedi and begin a new order of our own. It would be one which draws on both the light and the dark. They are twin threads which weave the story of existence, each embracing the other. In destruction lies creation, and there is no birth without death. These truths pervade all worlds. Dark and light are paired like lovers. Neither can exist without the other. It is our destiny to together usher in a new dawn of balance in the Force.’

There was a pause as Rey sought to absorb his words.

Then, slowly, she said, ‘But I thought your grandfather was supposed to have brought balance to the Force?’

‘The Jedi believed so’, nodded Kylo. ‘They thought he was the one to fulfil their prophecy that _a Chosen One shall come, born of no father, and through him will ultimate balance in the Force be restored._ Yet he was supposed to have achieved this through destroying Palpatine, and he did not do that, as we now know.’

‘So, you think that somehow _we_ are the ones who are supposed to restore harmony to the Force?’

‘I do’, he responded, smiling again. ‘I was not sure before, but I am now. I have studied the prophecy in its original script, and an alternative translation into Basic would be _: a Chosen One shall come, bearing not the name of their father’s line, and through the One will ultimate balance in the Force be restored_. Even the word ‘one’ could alternatively be translated as ‘unit’. What if we, as a bonded pair, are One in the Force? Neither of us bears our father’s name. Together, we can work to ensure that an equilibrium is maintained between the dark side and the light throughout the universe’.

Rey looked at him for a long moment before shifting her gaze to survey the ruins of their surroundings once more. As her eyes travelled over the fallen rock, she thought of the loyal but misguided Sith cultists buried beneath. Then she thought of Luke Skywalker and of how he had despaired at her stubborn aim to become a Jedi, with or without his help. Finally, she thought of her grandfather, and of how far out of balance the Force could get if no one was able to keep it in check.

‘What do you say?’ asked Kylo, still waiting for her answer.

She returned her eyes to his.

Then, as once before, he offered his hand to her.

This time, she took it.


	27. Aurora

_FINN_

‘It’s ready’, said Finn, making the final adjustment to the finial rod he and Jannah had set up.

Chewie and Zorii had worked together to extract the section of piping from the _Falcon’s_ fresher systems, displacing some nesting porgs as they did so. Babu had then used his tiny hammer to round off the ends, while Chewie had flown the ship up to the roof of the Sith citadel. The rod was now attached to a stand and stood projecting upwards into the sky from the smooth, flat surface of the roof beneath it. They had temporarily covered the top with a non-conducting protective sheet.

‘Connect this to it’, ordered Connix as she passed Finn the end of a very long cable about five inches in diameter.

Poe had not been far wrong when he’d said that the _Falcon’s_ lower engine compartment contained cabling stretching to several sectruns in length. As they had disconnected the cabling from the ship’s systems and tugged it through an outer hatch, its thick, silvery casing had formed hundreds of coils like an infamous Alon python from O-beed.

Finn was still very uncertain as to whether their plan to bring down the Sith fleet and First Order command ships would work. But one thing was for sure: the _Falcon_ could not fly now that its innards had been pulled out. Regardless of how things played out, they were stuck on the roof.

‘All systems go!’ called Jannah, as she secured the cable end into the attachment piece they had fashioned. ‘How’s the alternator coming on?’

‘It’s all set’, replied Rose, jumping down from her position on top of the _Lake Surfer_ , which was now parked next to the _Falcon_ on the roof. ‘BB-8, do you remember what I showed you about which switch to connect?’

BB-8 whistled solemnly from where he sat locked into the _Lake Surfer’s_ droid slot. The droid had been insistent on accompanying Poe on his mission to bring the alternator up to a high altitude to detonate the electromagnetic pulse. He would not be talked out of it despite the peril faced.

Connix fixed the other end of the cable onto the _Lake Surfer’s_ tow bar attachment. ‘It’s time’, she said.

Finn took a deep breath before gazing into the craft’s cockpit to look at Poe, possibly for the last time. The pilot’s helmet visor was screening his eyes, but Finn could tell they were awash with emotion.

‘We are the spark that will light the fire’, Poe intoned thickly, his voice anguished yet fierce.

‘May the Force be with you, my friend’, Finn whispered in return.

Poe nodded, and with that closed the rounded hatch door and initiated the engine sequence.

As the _Lake Surfer_ shot up into the sky, Finn felt a deep heaviness bearing down upon him.

As predicted, the closest Destroyers in the Sith fleet opened fire on the approaching ship straight away. Arcs of red laser fire lit up the sky above them.

Poe whipped the _Lake Surfer_ back and forth and round and round, his expert piloting skills facing the test of a lifetime. His manoeuvres were somewhat constrained by the cable attached. But as he darted and twisted, he somehow managed to dodge all enemy fire.

All the while, the sea of silver coils spread out on the roof steadily decreased in size as more and more of the cable was tugged upwards into the air.

Before long, the _Lake Surfer_ managed to reach the altitude of the Destroyers themselves, at which point they had to stop firing or else risk damaging their own ships. Through his retri-noculars, Finn could see specks emerging from their hulls, suggesting that they had dispatched TIE squadrons to attack instead.

He began to pace back and forth on the roof, too frantic to stand still. He knew that as more and more TIEs joined the chase, Poe’s chances of survival would grow slimmer.

‘Watch out!’ cried Rose, and he looked up to see a set of TIEs breaking off from the hunting group and switching direction to hurtle down towards the Sith citadel.

‘Take cover!’ yelled Jannah, and the group dashed to the relative safety of the space beneath the _Falcon’s_ hull, although they knew that one good hit would finish them off. They were sitting ducks.

Finn looked out as red laser fire rained down, pummelling the roof as the TIEs made a pass. Although the _Falcon_ was hit, luckily the strikes were on the opposite side of the ship to where they were crouching. Zorii and Jannah fired back with Z-6 rotary blaster cannons, though the weapons’ short range made them of limited use against the TIEs.

Chewie moaned loudly and dashed inside the ship to try to control the resulting fires that had broken out. As he ran up the loading ramp, Finn could see him swatting his way through a cloud of porgs who came flying down it, flapping their wings in alarm at the attack on their adopted home.

Turning his attention back to their apparatus, to his horror Finn saw that one of the TIEs’ lasers had hit a section of cable which lay spread out on the roof, severing it clean in two. Now any power from a lightning strike at the rod would never reach the _Lake Surfer_.

‘We have to restore that connection!’ he shouted over the din of the soaring TIEs. ‘No matter what!’

At this he made to run out towards the break but was forced back as the enemy fighters came around again.

This time, their laser fire hit part of the _Falcon_ much closer to them, and also caused a second break in the cable.

Finn felt rising dread within him and was momentarily frozen to the spot.

Then he noticed two shapes calmly pass in front of him, one silver and one gold.

R2-D2 and C-3PO were making their way towards the two breaks. Finn could scarcely comprehend what was happening as R2 extended two of his robotic claws and grabbed on to the charred ends of one section of severed cable. Meanwhile C-3PO stooped down by the other break and held onto the remaining detached sections. Their metallic bodies acted as conducting connections which restored the viability of the circuit.

Hope coursed through him once again, though he knew they did not have long to act as the length of cable left on the roof was getting dangerously low, and the TIEs were swooping in for another round.

‘Poe, now!’ Rose yelled down her communicator, as Finn sprinted over to the rod and ripped off the protective cover from the top of it.

Almost instantly, the exposed pole was hit by several lightning strikes at once. Their pure white light illuminated the entire rooftop. Then, crackles of blue electricity sparked and flared as power surged from the rod and along the cable.

The poor droids were shaken like Vi-tung jelly slugs, but somehow their grips on the cable remained firm. They did not let go.

In the next moment, there was an enormous flash just above the Sith fleet, and from a single point a green arc of ionising energy began to radiate out in every direction. It warped and buckled as it came under the influence of Exegol’s magnetic fields, which scattered its dispersal into unpredictable wave patterns.

The resulting aurora would have been beautiful had Finn not known who was at its focus.

The sphere of charged particles struck the Sith fleet from above and the First Order’s ships from below. Finn watched, transfixed, as the huge vessels were lit up one by one. As each was impacted, every electrical system in the ship fired at maximum as its voltage was temporarily amplified. Then, the next second, the ship went dark, with the electromagnetic surge sending the entire vessel into blackout.

These pops of light followed by swallowing darkness rippled out across the sky, and for a moment it was as if time had stopped.

Then, one by one, Sith and First Order ships alike began to drop. Their crews no longer had any control over their burnt-out systems, and with anti-gravity features now disabled, they were powerless to stop the massive hulks from falling.

Finn could not help but gasp at the sight of millions of tons of metal and plastic hurtling down to Exegol’s surface.

As each ship hit the ground, it exploded, consumed by fire and plasma as its fuel cells ruptured from the impact.

Against the backdrop of this hellscape, Finn felt his attention somehow pulled to a small dot, plummeting downwards along with the rest. From its shape he recognised it to be the _Lake Surfer_. There was no sign of life from its engines; they, too, had been knocked out by the pulse.

Tears streaked down his face as his thoughts turned to his friends on board.

Then, suddenly, the tiny ship froze in mid-air, caught in a tractor beam emanating from the _Falcon_. Chewie must have been at the controls, which were somehow still functional despite the poor state the ship was in.

The _Lake Surfer_ was dragged slowly towards them, before being swung gradually to one side and lowered to rest at the edge of the rooftop.

Leaping for joy, Finn and the others dashed over to it. Inside they found Poe, barely conscious, and BB-8, who looked frazzled. Gently, the group lifted the two from the ship and carried them over to where C-3PO and R2-D2 were positioned, themselves looking a great deal worse for wear.

Chewie emerged from the _Falcon_ to join them, sharing a look of unspeakable relief as his eyes met Finn’s.

Their senses were overpowered by the heat, noise and sights all around them. Despite their victory, it was too much for anyone. But then Finn felt a gentle touch at his right hand. He looked down to see Rose taking his hand in hers. He did the same and reached out to Connix, who was to his left. Soon, the whole group were standing together, rooting one another and gazing upwards as the sky caved in from above.


	28. Epilogue: Five Years Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we come to the final chapter! Thank you so much to everyone who has followed this story along the way. If you've enjoyed the ride it would mean the world if you clicked on the heart and spread the love ;)
> 
> For now, it's goodbye. From one nerd to another... May the Force be with you.

_KYLO_

‘Look out!’ Kylo yelled loudly, yanking one of his young padawans out of the way just in time. The pebble the Mon Calamari had been trying to levitate wobbled and then fell, missing the student’s head by an inch.

Kylo looked down, bemused, as the padawan just shrugged and returned to try again.

‘Remember, you must hold your concentration’, he told the child sagely. ‘You can’t let anything distract you’.

Just at this moment, Kylo’s head was turned as Rey passed by the edge of the lakeshore where his class was practising.

‘Looks like they’re coming along well’, she commented, smiling as she teased him.

‘There are a couple who have further to go’, he acknowledged. ‘But actually, most of them are making good progress. I was thinking of moving on to using hand-sized stones next week.’

‘That sounds good’, she responded happily. ‘I think Finn’s group have advanced to levitating boulders’.

‘Well, his students were slightly further along when we took them on’, Kylo retorted sulkily, his face dropping.

Rey simply grinned back, and Kylo realised that she had just been mocking him again.

‘Only joking’, she laughed. ‘I actually think several of them had to go to Connix’s medical hut this morning with pebble-inflicted wounds.’

Kylo sighed but could not keep the smile off his face for long.

‘Class dismissed’, he announced, turning back to his charges. ‘Time for dinner!’

The padawans cheered loudly and hastily stashed their training pebbles away before running off in the direction of Babu’s kitchen.

‘Do you want to come for a walk with me?’ Rey asked.

‘Sure’, he replied easily, and they set off along the water’s edge.

Around them the breeze rustled through the trees, and the yip-hoppers chirped in the still evening air.

As smooth ripples of silvery lake water lapped gently up to the shingle, Kylo reflected on how much had changed.

Following the Battle of Exegol, he had travelled to Coruscant and brought himself before the Reformed Congress, which was just starting to establish itself as a successor to the New Republic. Most of the latter’s institutions had been destroyed during the Hosnian Cataclysm.

The High Court had sentenced him for his crimes, though the penance which they deemed just was tempered by their recognition of his part in freeing the galaxy from the suffocating clutches of the First Order, following his renunciation of it. They were also mindful of his central role in defeating Palpatine and protecting the galaxy from Sith colonial rule.

Once he had served his time, he had come to join Rey and the other ex-Resistance members where they now lived on Takodana. Rey had chosen this planet as the location to start up a training temple for the new order which they had formed together. It was where she had first experienced the possibility of a different life other than the one she had suffered on Jakku. The planet was also where the pair of them had first met; where dark had collided with light. It seemed fitting as the home of a burgeoning organisation based on seeking to understand and safeguard balance in the Force. They had named the order the _Qatua_ , a term which meant ‘bringers of harmony’ in the old Alderaanian language.

Finn had come to fully embrace his own ability to connect to the Force, and together they had taken it in turns to travel the Core and Mid-Rim worlds, seeking out Force-sensitive individuals and offering them the chance to train. Now, blending Sith and Jedi techniques along with some new ones of their own, they spent their days instructing their students.

As the light faded, Rey lit her saber to illuminate their path. The weapon was a new one which she had built herself from the frame of her old staff. Although it was modelled on a plasma beam emitted from a kyber crystal like most sabers, it was unusual in that it burned gold. The colour reflected the equal balance of the light side and the dark side with which it was imbued.

Kylo lit his own newly constructed saber, too, its warm yellow light matching Rey’s. It took the form of a single blade, with its key distinguishing feature being an ornate guard-piece at the top of its hilt. This was fashioned from strands of white metal, each arching out backwards towards the base of the dark hilt like the rays of a dawn sun bursting through storm clouds after a dark night.

He had left his red saber on Exegol, burying it in the Great Hall of the citadel after the fall of the Sith. He had been glad to walk out of the room without its weighty presence; the weapon had been the one he had used to kill his father. The blue Skywalker saber remained in his possession as a keepsake, though he did not intend to use it again. For better or for worse, he had kept his mantra to let the past die.

As they reached the far end of the lake, the two Force-wielders paused and looked back across the water.

The sky overhead was starting to clear from the earlier mists which had veiled it. In the distance the forms of far-off mountain tops were taking shape, and above one the crescent of Takodana’s moon was coming into view. Beyond that, quiet and peaceful, lay the stars.


End file.
